LOS ANGELES, — Concrete.ai is readying for commercialization its pioneering data science platform that reduces costs and embodied carbon intensity (CO2e) in concrete construction. Furthermore, it is adding a Chief Technology Officer, Head of Engineering, five advisory board members and has executed a worldwide, exclusive license from UCLA for the underlying technology.
Concrete.ai’s platform delivers unparalleled reductions in the cost and CO2e of ready mixed and precast concrete used in construction by applying Artificial Intelligence to optimize concrete design and production. The result is a highly optimized, cost-effective concrete that fulfills all engineering performance characteristics, while utilizing locally available raw materials to ensure safety, longevity and code-compliance.
The company completed pre-commercial pilot testing with several of the largest cement and manufacturers which showed the technology reduced the material costs and CO2e of ready-mixed concrete (RMC) by up to 10 percent, and up to 70 percent, respectively. Concrete.ai has now taken a number of critical steps to productize and commercialize the core technology.
Worldwide, exclusive rights to underlying technology
Concrete.ai has executed a worldwide exclusive license to the core Concrete.ai platform which was developed at UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) by Mathieu Bauchy and Gaurav N. Sant, faculty members in UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering.
Addition of engineering and software leaders to drive productization of technology
Concrete.ai is building Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), processes and reporting tools on top of the core technology to accelerate the deployment of the platform with customers. To aid this process, company co-founder Mathieu Bauchy is taking on the role of Chief Technology Officer. Bauchy’s research has focused on decoding the “genome” of materials by means of simulations and machine learning. He has developed multiple artificial intelligence and machine learning applications related to material design, manufacturing, and optimization. Bauchy has received the Norbert J. Kreidl Award by the American Ceramics Society, the MDPI’s Materials Young Investigator, the Elsevier’s Rising Star in Computational Materials Science, and the Vittorio Gottardi Award from the International Commission on Glass.
Concrete.ai has also hired David Wegman as head of engineering. Wegman is an accomplished engineer with extensive experience building and deploying software systems for planetary health and who has led high-performing software teams at startup, midsize, and Fortune 500 companies. David will be focused on integrating the Concrete.ai platform with industry leading software to ensure a seamless and user-friendly experience.
Addition of Advisory board members to drive global awareness and sales
To increase awareness of Concrete.ai’s concrete-optimizing technology platform across industries and geographies, the company has added four leaders to its advisory board, including:
- Ann Klee, a nationally recognized expert in environmental law and policy, and accomplished executive who has led national and global organizations in the private and public sectors. Most recently, Klee was the Executive Vice President for Business Development and Government Affairs for Suffolk, a national integrated design, technology and construction company based in Boston. She also served as the Vice President for Environment, Health & Safety at General Electric. As Chief Counsel to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Klee drafted numerous bills on environmental issues and worked on the first resolution to address climate change in 1998.
- Ian Riley, who has been CEO of the World Cement Association since 2019 where his priority is to accelerate decarbonization of the cement and concrete industries. Previously Riley was the Greater China Country Head for cement major Holcim, where he was responsible for the successful integration of the Holcim and Lafarge businesses in China. He is also currently a Steering Committee member for the Smart Surfaces Coalition.
- Pat Ward, who most recently served as CEO for Breedon Group, the largest independent construction materials group in the UK. Previously, Ward spent over 20 years with Holcim / Aggregate Industries across their UK and US businesses in senior leadership roles including CEO.
- Mike Mettler, a cofounder at RightHandGreen, a climate benefits company. Previously, he was a cofounder of card.io (acquired by PayPal) and was an early employee at AdMob (acquired by Google).
- Walter Dissinger who is a veteran of materials and chemicals industries, served as CEO of Votorantim Cimentos, a global cement player in North America, Europe and South America and enjoyed 20 years in a variety of roles at BASF, including President of its Health and Nutrition unit. Dissinger sits on several Boards of Directors of multinational companies such as AECI Group (Chemicals, South Africa), Evora Group (Chemicals-Non Wovens, Brazil), Tigre (Construction Materials, Brazil) and Baumgart Group (Construction Materials and Shopping Centers, Brazil).
“Mathieu and David bring a level of expertise and experience to product development that will truly drive value in Concrete.ai’s solutions to our customers,” said Alex Hall, CEO of Concrete.ai. “Additionally, having such a formidable advisory group will ensure that we are perfectly positioned for rapid growth and long-term success.”
Concrete.ai expects to begin selling its technology commercially in the third quarter of 2022.
About Concrete.ai
Concrete.ai is a data science company that delivers cost-savings and embodied carbon reductions in concrete production. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Concrete.ai’s platform designs and proportions the optimal concrete for any construction application. This reduces costs and embodied carbon footprint of concrete, while ensuring certainty of performance, compliance with existing codes and standards.
More information is available at http://www.Concrete.ai/.
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