COP30: the UCLB spinouts making it their business to help achieve net zero

After a dramatic COP30 in Belém, Brazil, we take a look at two UCLB spinouts – Oriole Networks and Carbon Re – who are making it their business to bring technologies to market that could have a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption in the world’s energy-hungry industries: AI and concrete making.    

Ahead of COP30, The World Economic Forum (WEF) identified two key challenges for achieving net zero: decarbonising heavy industry and making the AI revolution sustainable. WEF’s Net-Zero Industry Tracker highlights that steel, cement, and aluminium alone account for about 15% of industrial emissions worldwide, and demand is set to rise with urbanisation and economic growth. Manufacture of these materials is of course vital to modern infrastructure – but also poses a critical bottleneck in the race to net zero.

Material solutions in the short term

This is where a technology developed and brought to market by UCL spinout Carbon Re could be transformational. Carbon Re has developed an AI-driven technology that can ‘plug in’ to the digital systems than control processing in industries such as concrete making – and by constantly adjusting and optimising energy-intensive production processes, can help dramatically reduce energy use and carbon emission.

Carbon Re’s solutions is a perfect example of what the WEF’s calls “first movers” – innovative ways to catalyse demand for low-carbon materials and the push for integrating carbon neutrality into all economic policies.

Carbo Re’s Chief Operations Officer & Co-founder Buffy Price says: “Both the WEF and UN have made clear that business-as-usual is no longer an option, and the UN’s latest guidelines for data centres and the WEF’s reports on industrial decarbonisation both stress the need for cross-sector collaboration, innovation, and investment in energy-saving technologies. That’s where we come in.

“We know that cement production is going to double by 2050 and we have strict net zero targets to reach by 2030. So, we are working within the existing envelope with existing cement plants, so that we’re not requiring any hardware, any changes, any capex costs. We are purely optimising how cement is made today.”

Carbon Re’s impact is measured in its reduction in fossil fuel use, or increase in alternative fuels. Currently, the installation of one feature in an average sized cement plant is equivalent to taking about 31,000 cars off the road every year; around 4,800 tonnes.

It’s a formidable challenge to get the global cement-making industry to adopt Carbon Re’s revolutionary approach – but Buffy Price is single-minded on that mission: “Certainly, the path to commercialisation for AI is a long one. It requires a lot of upfront costs, in terms of the people power, and the excellent brain power that we get from the likes of UCL.”

Making data faster and cleaner

Oriole Networks also a UCL spinout on a mission to dramatically reduce energy consumption – but their focus is data centres. AI data centres are predicted to account for 15–25% of new electricity demand by 2030. Oriole’s solution could significantly reduce this strain.

The company tackles one of AI’s biggest challenges: latency and sustainability. Oriole Networks builds photonics-based networks for AI data centres. Instead of converting signals back and forth between light and electricity, Oriole keeps data in the form of light throughout the network. This reduces latency to near the speed of light and cuts power consumption dramatically. This approach enables large language models (LLMs) to train up to 100 times faster while using a fraction of the power.

“We’re building a giant here because the world needs this,” Oriole’s CEO and co-founder, James Regan told the Venturi Podcast. “Photonics is to photons what electronics is to electrons. Just as integrated circuits revolutionised electronics in the 1960s, photonic integrated circuits allow us to manipulate light on a chip. This makes complex optical systems scalable and cost-effective,” Regan says. “This isn’t just an economic issue; it’s a planetary one. Reducing energy consumption in AI data centres has global environmental benefits.”

Carbon Re and Oriole Networks are great examples of the new generation of impact-driven technology businesses, rooted in cutting edge UCL research, which are building a more sustainable, resilient, and prosperous future for everyone.