A quiet transformation is underway within the cleantech world. Synthetic intelligence is right here to remain, and it’s reworking 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 changing into an enabling layer throughout the complete {hardware} worth chain—usually in locations few anticipate.
_ - AI within the innovation course of continues to be underutilized. Those that act now stand to realize actual strategic benefit.
_ - LLMs are elevating the bar. The fast evolution of huge language fashions is creating new aggressive pressures. Quickly, embedding AI in your innovation course of gained’t be a differentiator—it’ll be the baseline.
We wished to understand how and who within the cleantech world are seeing and experiencing.
Now we 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 turn out to be an enabling power for cleantech in Asia, and in that case, how and the place? Ought to traders rethink their capital allocations between “arduous” cleantech (infrastructure, supplies) and “mushy” cleantech (software program, knowledge, 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 device, however as a nationwide progress engine. It’s investing in hyperscale knowledge facilities, customized semiconductors, and big pc infrastructure. Nevertheless, 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 not decarbonize methods. 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 shouldn’t be an summary expertise layer anymore. It’ll deeply form vitality methods—and the way they need to evolve. Infrastructure is now not background. It’s the enabling stage for the complete present.
Cleantech Group Take:
This gives a very good instance of how the rise of AI will stimulate different types of innovation exercise. Certainly, as Max says, AI can not decarbonize the info middle alone. Reaching that requires new carbon-free baseload vitality inputs, stimulating areas like geothermal and superior nuclear. It additionally calls for new cooling options, the emergence of recent ideas corresponding 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 important enabler for Asia’s cleantech transformation, with funding momentum suggesting a elementary shift in how we method decarbonization expertise.
There’s growing curiosity from the company world throughout APAC to implement AI into their operations, not solely to advance new initiatives, however to keep up competitiveness inside their current enterprise strains. For instance, in a latest report by ABI Analysis, over 50% of producers in Malaysia now view AI as important for brand new ventures, with areas corresponding to robotics garnering specific consideration.
In a area like Southeast Asia, the place there’s a rising want for bodily infrastructure to drive the vitality transition, AI will serve to supercharge bodily property for aggressive benefit. As such, cleantech investments mustn’t diverge into an “both/or” state of affairs in the case of software program versus {hardware}—the profitable technique will mix each.
Cleantech Group Take:
And, as alluded to, a profitable technique can even contain the mix of AI and Robotics. As per Cleantech Group’s final information to AI in cleantech, we consider that these ever-improving applied sciences will provide industrial effectivity within the Asia Pacific area the chance for important productiveness good points. 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 economic system.
AI is ready to emerge as a key enabler of cleantech in Asia, with early indicators of adoption throughout sectors corresponding to renewable vitality, good 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—corresponding 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 vitality functions, and AI options for extra environment friendly knowledge facilities. These hybrid fashions are starting to redefine what is feasible in rising markets.
At ADB Ventures, we’re supporting a more moderen technology of early-stage corporations which can be growing superior, built-in options, enhanced by AI. We consider, as traders in Asian markets, it’s not a selection between “arduous” and “mushy” cleantech, however quite that true worth lies in integration of AI with the bodily foundations of the clear economic system. It’s not with out its fair proportion of challenges, although. There are price implications, elevated calls for on vitality consumption and restricted availability of expert expertise.
Unlocking AI’s full potential would require focused funding, higher knowledge infrastructure, and supportive coverage environments. Because the cleantech ecosystem continues to evolve, the main focus should stay on real-world functions—the place AI serves as a robust device 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 focus 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 functions and the way they may 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 quite grim image, given the fast growth of energy-intensive knowledge facilities that largely rely upon fossil fuels, consequently growing carbon emissions. Regardless of this, there’s real promise in AI’s potential.
With intermittent and distributed renewable technology, grid administration and balancing provide and demand have turn out to be exceedingly advanced. Effectively addressing this complexity calls for superior instruments, with AI rising as a important element.
Nevertheless, 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 way in which 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 are going to 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 happened at our Might 2025 Cleantech Discussion board Asia round how in a different way we want to consider the design of future infrastructure.
“Maybe probably the most provocative perception of the session was that future infrastructure shall be constructed not primarily for human use, however for machines. The calls for of AI, robotics, and digital providers will drive infrastructure selections to a larger extent than city inhabitants progress. It’s a reversal of previous planning assumptions—and a name for a brand new design philosophy.”
You possibly can 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 “arduous” cleantech to additionally embody “mushy” cleantech. In manufacturing and transportation, corporations now not “educate” 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 educate. Present AI expertise 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 expertise is accelerating manufacturing facility automation, embodied robotics, and EV good driving. AI permits these functions with superior precision, enhanced manufacturing effectivity, whereas optimizing vitality consumption and minimizing materials waste.
In China’s new supplies and bioscience industries, AI has turn out to be a transformative developmental device. AI-designed biomaterials have tremendously decreased price and achieved increased efficiency than animal-derived supplies. A development is rising of corporations leveraging AI for R&D functions together with knowledge evaluation, predictive modeling, high-throughput experimentation, and design optimization. For instance, PAM2L Biotechnologies is a number one firm on this house, specializing in AI-driven protein mining/evolution applied sciences to expedite improvement of recent bio-based supplies together with mussel adhesive proteins (MAP), HythermFN (recombinant fibronectin), and Colamin Biocellulose supplies. As AI continues to develop vertically on this house, we anticipate cleantech supplies and bioscience corporations in China to additionally develop immensely.
Regardless of its benefits for cleantech, as AI fashions develop in complexity and scale, their vitality consumption has turn out to be a major concern. Therefore, we can even be zooming in on start-ups that may optimize current AI infrastructure for higher vitality effectivity, whereas sustaining and even bettering efficiency.
Cleantech Group Take:
China stays a blind spot for many and I feel it’s a affordable 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 shall be new areas within the cleantech panorama the place China, by centered use of AI in cleantech, will come out with one thing that blindsides the remainder of the world.
Definitely, we agree with the notion of AI as a transformative developmental device. Now we 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 lowering dangers and prices in exploration for potential mining or geothermal websites.
