DOE Backs AI for Clean Tech Investors – IEEE Spectrum

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to make investing in energy technology easier, less risky, and less expensive (for the government, at least).

A new initiative by the DOEs office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) is looking for ideas on how to reduce barriers to private investment in energy technologies. Rho AI, one of 11 companies awarded a grant through the EEREs US $7.8-million programcalled Innovative Pathways, plans to use artificial intelligence and data science to efficiently connect investors to startups. By using natural language processing tools to sift through publicly available information, Rho AI will build an online network of potential investors and energy technology companies, sort of like a LinkedIn for the energy sector.The Rho AI team wants to develop a more extensive network than any individual is capable of having on their own, and theyre relying on artificial intelligence to make smarter connections faster than a human could.

Youre limited by the human networking capability when it comes to trying to connect technology and investment, says Josh Browne, co-Founder and vice president of operations at Rho AI. Theres only so many hours in a day and theres only so many people in your network.

Using theUS $750,000 it received from the DOE, Rho AI has just two years to build, test, and prove the efficacy of its system. The two-year timeline for demonstrating proof of concept is a stipulation of the grant. With this approach,the DOE hopes to streamline the underlying process for getting new energy technologies to the market, instead of investing inparticularcompanies.

Its a fairly small grant, relative to some of the larger grants where they invest in the actual hard technology, Browne says. In this case, theyre investing in ways to unlock money to invest in hard technology.

Rho AIs database will not only contain information about energy technology companies and investor interests, it will also track where money is coming from and who its going to in the industry. Browne imagines the interface will look something like a Bloomberg terminal.

To build the database, Rho AI will use Google Tensor Flow and Natural Language Toolkittools that can read and analyze human languageto scan public documents such as Securities and Exchange Commission filings and news articles on energy companies. The system will then use software tools that help analyze and visualize patterns in data, such as MUXviz and NetMiner, to understand how people and companies are connected.

In order to measure how well its helping investors and emerging clean technology companies find better business partners faster, Rho AI will compare the machine-built network with the real professional network of Carmichael Roberts, a leading venture capitalist in clean technology.

This tool is intended to emulate and perhaps surpass the networking capability of a leading clean tech venture capitalist, Browne says. It should be able to match their network, and it should be able to very rapidly be ten times their network.

Rho AIs program should create a longer, more comprehensive list of possible investments than Roberts canwithin seconds. The intention is for the final product to be robust enough that members of the private sector could and would adopt it after one year.

If Rho AI is able to be successful in what theyre building, that will be in some sense self-scaling, says Johanna Wolfson, director of the tech-to-market program at the DOE.

In other words, Rho AI could grow on its own and the industry could start seeing the effects of these connections. Investors and clean energy technology companies could find each other directly, while reducing the burden on the government to invest so much in energy innovation.

Improving the underlying pathway for getting new energy technology to market actually can be done for relatively small dollar amounts, relative to what the government sometimes supports, in ways that can be catalytic, but sustained by the private sector, said Wolfson.

Editors note: This post was corrected on August 8to reflect thespecifications of the DOEs grant.

IEEE Spectrums energy, power, and green tech blog, featuring news and analysis about the future of energy, climate, and the smart grid.

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DOE Backs AI for Clean Tech Investors - IEEE Spectrum