A quiet transformation is underway within the cleantech world. Synthetic intelligence is right here to remain, and it’s transforming the very basis of innovation, reshaping how breakthroughs are conceived, developed, and scaled.
At Cleantech Group, we’ve been carefully monitoring, for greater than two years now, the accelerating influence of superior AI throughout the sectors we cowl. Three clear themes have emerged:
- AI is greater than software program. It’s turning into an enabling layer throughout your entire {hardware} worth chain—typically in locations few count on.
_ - AI within the innovation course of remains to be underutilized. Those that act now stand to achieve actual strategic benefit.
_ - LLMs are elevating the bar. The fast evolution of enormous language fashions is creating new aggressive pressures. Quickly, embedding AI in your innovation course of received’t be a differentiator—it’ll be the baseline.
We needed to understand how and who within the cleantech world are seeing and experiencing.
We now have contributions this quarter from South Korea, China, and three Singapore-based traders, whose pursuits and views are pan-regional. Our visitor contributors have been reacting to the open query:
Will AI develop into an enabling power for cleantech in Asia, and if that’s the case, how and the place? Ought to traders rethink their capital allocations between “onerous” cleantech (infrastructure, supplies) and “tender” cleantech (software program, information, and AI)?
AI can’t drive cleantech with out the infrastructure to maneuver.
South Korea’s new administration is betting on AI—not simply as a productiveness instrument, however as a nationwide progress engine. It’s investing in hyperscale information facilities, customized semiconductors, and big laptop infrastructure. Nonetheless, with rising electrical energy demand, the local weather influence of this AI buildout is unsure.
That is the place cleantech infrastructure issues. In Asia, the place grids are fragmented and cooling hundreds are rising quick, AI alone can’t decarbonize techniques. Smarter cooling, grid flexibility, thermal storage, and sustainable energy distribution should evolve in parallel. AI is the mind—however with out the physique, it’s simply potential.
As cleantech traders, we view this second as a strategic inflection level. AI will not be an summary know-how layer anymore. It should deeply form power techniques—and the way they have to evolve. Infrastructure is not background. It’s the enabling stage for your entire present.
Cleantech Group Take:
This supplies an excellent instance of how the rise of AI will stimulate different types of innovation exercise. Certainly, as Max says, AI can’t decarbonize the information middle alone. Reaching that requires new carbon-free baseload power inputs, stimulating areas like geothermal and superior nuclear. It additionally calls for new cooling options, the emergence of latest ideas comparable to low-carbon AI internet hosting, and a seek for supplies innovation, be that associated to warmth or bettering the facility effectivity of semiconductors, for instance.
AI is quickly rising as a essential enabler for Asia’s cleantech transformation, with funding momentum suggesting a basic shift in how we strategy decarbonization know-how.
There’s rising curiosity from the company world throughout APAC to implement AI into their operations, not solely to advance new initiatives, however to take care of competitiveness inside their present enterprise traces. For instance, in a latest report by ABI Analysis, over 50% of producers in Malaysia now view AI as important for brand spanking new ventures, with areas comparable to robotics garnering specific consideration.
In a area like Southeast Asia, the place there’s a rising want for bodily infrastructure to drive the power transition, AI will serve to supercharge bodily belongings for aggressive benefit. As such, cleantech investments mustn’t diverge into an “both/or” state of affairs on the subject of software program versus {hardware}—the profitable technique will mix each.
Cleantech Group Take:
And, as alluded to, a profitable technique may also contain the mix of AI and Robotics. As per Cleantech Group’s final information to AI in cleantech, we imagine that these ever-improving applied sciences will supply industrial effectivity within the Asia Pacific area the chance for vital productiveness features. That is very true in Asia as a result of, as everyone knows, Asia is the motor of the world’s manufacturing and heavy trade financial system.
AI is about to emerge as a key enabler of cleantech in Asia, with early indicators of adoption throughout sectors comparable to renewable power, sensible grids, sustainable agriculture, and waste administration. Whereas there are promising pilot initiatives and preliminary deployments—significantly in markets like China, India, and Singapore—AI’s integration into cleantech stays at a nascent stage and isn’t but mainstream.
What we’re seeing on the bottom although is AI being utilized in additional focused, sensible methods—comparable to accelerating materials discovery, shortening battery improvement cycles, and optimizing operational efficiency. Inside our personal portfolio, examples embrace AI-powered robots for fertilizer and enter software, an analytics platform that improves automobile efficiency utilizing AI, AI-powered imaging optimization in renewable power purposes, and AI options for extra environment friendly information facilities. These hybrid fashions are starting to redefine what is feasible in rising markets.
At ADB Ventures, we’re supporting a more recent technology of early-stage firms which can be growing superior, built-in options, enhanced by AI. We imagine, as traders in Asian markets, it’s not a alternative between “onerous” and “tender” cleantech, however moderately that true worth lies in integration of AI with the bodily foundations of the clear financial system. It’s not with out its justifiable share of challenges, although. There are price implications, elevated calls for on power consumption and restricted availability of expert expertise.
Unlocking AI’s full potential would require focused funding, higher information infrastructure, and supportive coverage environments. Because the cleantech ecosystem continues to evolve, the main focus should stay on real-world purposes—the place AI serves as a strong instrument to amplify local weather influence, not as an finish in itself.
Cleantech Group Take:
We completely agree with the notion that AI and its influence throughout the cleantech theme is at an embryonic stage. Nonetheless, an excessive amount of of the hype and a spotlight is on AI itself and its thirst for energy.
To not deny that this issues loads, but it surely distracts from focusing extra consideration on AI’s purposes and the way they might speed up the event of cleaner, extra environment friendly options. That’s the place the massive upside for cleantech and emissions lies.
The notion of power-hungry AI enabling cleantech jogs my memory of the story of Baron Munchausen pulling himself out of a swamp by his personal hair. Present proof paints a moderately grim image, given the fast growth of energy-intensive information facilities that largely depend upon fossil fuels, consequently rising carbon emissions. Regardless of this, there may be real promise in AI’s potential.
With intermittent and distributed renewable technology, grid administration and balancing provide and demand have develop into exceedingly complicated. Effectively addressing this complexity calls for superior instruments, with AI rising as a essential part.
Nonetheless, between software program and {hardware} investments, we emphasize investing in {hardware}—particularly clever, responsive {hardware}—in Southeast Asia. The idea for clever management is just not there but.
Singapore’s SP Group is main the best way by growing a digital twin of 18,000 transformers, aiming to optimize grid operations utilizing AI. This system simply began, outcomes are coming, and we’ll see them by subsequent yr. It stays to be seen whether or not AI can, like Munchausen, pull itself and us out of this one.
Cleantech Group Take:
This jogs my memory of a dialogue which came about at our Might 2025 Cleantech Discussion board Asia round how in another way we’d like to consider the design of future infrastructure.
“Maybe probably the most provocative perception of the session was that future infrastructure will probably be constructed not primarily for human use, however for machines. The calls for of AI, robotics, and digital companies will drive infrastructure selections to a higher extent than city inhabitants progress. It’s a reversal of previous planning assumptions—and a name for a brand new design philosophy.”
You’ll be able to learn extra on that dialogue led by Anthony DeOrsey, Analysis Supervisor at Cleantech Group, right here.
AI is rising as a key enabler for Chinese language cleantech, extending previous conventional “onerous” cleantech to additionally embody “tender” cleantech. In manufacturing and transportation, firms not “train” robots/EVs with software-coded guidelines. As an alternative, Chinese language enterprises are making use of Bodily AI to “prepare” robots/EVs past what people can train. Present AI know-how can generate Imaginative and prescient-Language-Motion (VLA) operation datasets and modeling, simulate duties, then confirm and obtain suggestions from bodily world fashions (i.e., World Basis Fashions). This know-how is accelerating manufacturing facility automation, embodied robotics, and EV sensible driving. AI allows these purposes with superior precision, enhanced manufacturing effectivity, whereas optimizing power consumption and minimizing materials waste.
In China’s new supplies and bioscience industries, AI has develop into a transformative developmental instrument. AI-designed biomaterials have enormously lowered price and achieved larger efficiency than animal-derived supplies. A development is rising of firms leveraging AI for R&D purposes together with information evaluation, predictive modeling, high-throughput experimentation, and design optimization. For instance, PAM2L Biotechnologies is a number one firm on this area, specializing in AI-driven protein mining/evolution applied sciences to expedite improvement of latest bio-based supplies together with mussel adhesive proteins (MAP), HythermFN (recombinant fibronectin), and Colamin Biocellulose supplies. As AI continues to broaden vertically on this area, we count on cleantech supplies and bioscience firms in China to additionally develop immensely.
Regardless of its benefits for cleantech, as AI fashions develop in complexity and scale, their power consumption has develop into a big concern. Therefore, we may also be zooming in on start-ups that may optimize present AI infrastructure for higher power effectivity, whereas sustaining and even bettering efficiency.
Cleantech Group Take:
China stays a blind spot for many and I feel it’s a cheap guess that, given China’s management in probably the most mature clear applied sciences–photo voltaic, batteries, EVs, and warmth pumps, the core pillars of a future electro-state–there will probably be new areas within the cleantech panorama the place China, via targeted use of AI in cleantech, will come out with one thing that blindsides the remainder of the world.
Actually, we agree with the notion of AI as a transformative developmental instrument. We now have recognized scores of startups who’re utilizing it as such–whether or not that’s in taking months out of the R&D processes, modeling new supplies, simulating fusion reactors, or decreasing dangers and prices in exploration for potential mining or geothermal websites.
