Gigaton raises $26m to scale UCL AI into new energy‑intensive industries

Scaling AI to transform some of the world’s most energy-intensive industries, Gigaton has raised $26m in Series A funding to accelerate its next stage of growth.

The UCLB and University of Cambridge spinout – formerly known as Carbon Re – is replacing control software with fully autonomous control systems across some of the world’s most energy‑intensive industries.

Gigaton’s technology is already used by several of the world’s largest cement producers, including Adani Cement, Heidelberg Materials and Holcim, where it is delivering annual savings of $1-3m per plant through reduced energy use and lower emissions. Individual plants are now saving up to 30,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of around 11,000 UK households.

The new funding, bringing the total raised to $35m, will support a five‑fold expansion of the team alongside entry into new sectors including steel, glass and chemicals, supporting the company’s mission to strengthen industrial control and reduce emissions ‘on a gigaton scale’.

The round was led by Plural, with participation from 2150, Semapa Next, and existing investors Planet A Ventures, AlbionVC, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Clean Growth Fund and UCL Technology Fund (UCLTF), which is managed by UCLB.

Replacing legacy control systems in heavy industry

Energy‑intensive industries are under increasing pressure. Volatile energy markets, new fuel mixes and rising decarbonisation requirements are stretching that still rely on control systems designed decades ago. These systems often depend on manual intervention, leading to higher costs, instability and avoidable emissions.

Gigaton addresses this gap by replacing the existing control software stack used in industrial plants with an intelligent, AI‑driven optimisation layer that continuously learns and improves plant performance in real time.

Its self‑learning AI operates deep within plant infrastructure, continuously modelling process behaviour and predicting the impact of each operational decision before it is taken. This allows the system to autonomously adjust parameters such as fuel mix, kiln speed and oxygen levels, while remaining transparent to operators in the control room.

The result is lower fuel and energy costs, reduced carbon emissions and more stable plant performance, even when operating with alternative fuels that are harder to manage than traditional inputs.

Building towards autonomous “dark plants”

While fully autonomous “dark plants” are already emerging in parts of Asia, most industrial facilities in Europe and elsewhere remain constrained by legacy systems. Gigaton’s next phase focuses on closing that gap, building the AI infrastructure required for autonomous operation while delivering immediate economic and environmental benefits.

Josh Vernon, CEO of Gigaton, said: “Every cement executive I speak to is facing the same challenges: costs they struggle to control, carbon they struggle to reduce, and plants that weren’t built for the world they’re operating in today. The underlying software infrastructure most plants run on today was never built to manage the complexity plants are forced to deal with today. We have built Gigaton to deliver real cost and carbon savings now while building the AI infrastructure these industries need in a fully autonomous future.”

UCLB’s role

UCLB supported Gigaton by protecting its IP, helping form partnerships with leading industrial players, and supporting its growth with help from UCL Technology Fund: a major investor in the company.

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