All posts tagged: The Innovation Platform Issue 25

How Canada can lead energy storage globally

How Canada can lead energy storage globally

Published by skeptic

Energy Storage Canada outlines Canada’s potential to lead the energy storage sector, emphasising the need for stable trade policies and innovative industrial strategies to secure this future. Canada is already emerging as a global leader in energy storage deployment. Whether the country converts that early leadership into lasting advantage will depend less on technology and more on innovative policy choices being made on trade, supply chains and industrial strategy. In the past decade, Energy Storage Canada has seen energy storage technologies move from the margins of system planning to the core of electricity grid modernisation. Provinces no longer view storage as a pilot technology or niche resource, but as essential infrastructure supporting reliability, peak capacity and system flexibility. That shift is evident in procurement volumes, market reforms and long-term resource planning across multiple jurisdictions. Canada has moved beyond demonstration-scale deployment. More than 430 megawatts of energy storage are operating in Ontario today. Alberta has approximately 200 megawatts, Nova Scotia energised 100 megawatts near the end of 2025 and a range of smaller scale projects at …

iFAST Diagnostics delivers faster antimicrobial susceptibility testing

iFAST Diagnostics delivers faster antimicrobial susceptibility testing

Published by skeptic

iFAST Diagnostics Ltd has developed a breakthrough technology that delivers antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) results with speed, accuracy, and actionable clinical detail. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the defining health challenges of our time. As bacteria evolve and become increasingly resistant to existing treatments, the global community faces a mounting crisis that threatens to undermine decades of medical progress. Central to this challenge is the need for rapid, accurate identification of the most effective antibiotic for each patient. iFAST Diagnostics Ltd, a spinout from the University of Southampton, is pioneering a breakthrough technology that has the potential to transform clinical practice, improve patient outcomes, and significantly slow the spread of AMR. This article explores the scale of the AMR problem, the limitations of current diagnostic methods, and the innovative approach developed by iFAST Diagnostics to deliver rapid, precise, antimicrobial susceptibility testing. By enabling clinicians to prescribe the right antibiotic within hours rather than days, this technology represents a major step forward in the global effort to optimise antibiotic therapy. The growing threat …

Building research excellence in support of energy transition

Building research excellence in support of energy transition

Published by skeptic

The STREACS initiative, led by the American University of Armenia, aims to enhance Armenia’s research capacity in the energy transition to align with European standards and foster collaboration with experts in the European Research Area. Against a backdrop of accelerating climate and energy policy reforms, energy security has gained a prominent position in policymaking globally and in Armenia. Evidence-based guidance on this complex transformation requires a strong research capacity that engages policymakers, business, and society. The EU-funded STREACS, led by the American University of Armenia (AUA) Acopian Center for the Environment, offers this support, with the aim of strengthening Armenia’s energy research ecosystem to both serve national and regional policymaking and enable greater integration of Armenian researchers in the European Research Area and networks. Armenia is aligning its national energy transition agenda with broader European climate and security objectives. The country’s energy system reflects challenges shared by many net energy-importing countries, making it a relevant case for European-wide discussions on resilience, diversification, and decarbonisation. Currently, Armenia’s energy supply is heavily dominated by imported fossil fuels. …

Composability for powerful edge computing

Composability for powerful edge computing

Published by skeptic

The CAPE project develops a computer architecture for efficient Edge-Cloud. Locally deployed powerful edge-cloud Infrastructure is needed to support AI-driven environments with networks of autonomous devices to maintain their context and individual and shared states. This allows the devices to work together in federation towards individual and shared goals. To scale sustainably, this infrastructure must be provided as a service and built on composable hardware foundations. Compute, memory, storage, and accelerators must dynamically self-configure to maximise utilisation, minimise waste, and adapt capacity and heterogeneity to local needs delivering cloud-class performance through decentralised, fine-grained deployment. Fig. 1: CAPE vision of composable edge micro data centres within the Edge–Cloud Continuum. The EU-funded CAPE (European Open Compute Architecture for Powerful Edge) project addresses this gap by establishing edge micro data centres as a new, composable building block of the Edge–Cloud Continuum. CAPE combines open hardware, open-source software, and open standards to enable flexible, efficient, and sovereign edge computing across Europe. Edge hardware platforms: Composable by design CAPE rethinks edge servers as pools of dynamically composable resources rather than …

AI decision support system for early heart failure risk and detection

AI decision support system for early heart failure risk and detection

Published by skeptic

The STRATIFYHF project aims to develop an AI-based decision support system for the risk stratification, early diagnosis, and management of heart failure, utilising comprehensive data from European clinical centres to enhance patient care and outcomes. Heart failure (HF) is a global pandemic currently affecting up to 15 million people in Europe. It is a complex clinical syndrome associated with impaired heart function, poor quality of life for patients, and high healthcare costs. The STRATIFYHF project addresses this global challenge with an AI-based Decision Support System for HF. The STRATIFYHF aims to develop, validate and implement the first artificial intelligence (AI)-based, Decision Support System (DSS) for assessing and predicting the risk of HF, its early diagnosis, and progression. STRATIFYHF project integrates 1) patient-specific data, i.e. demographic, clinical, genetic, lifestyle and socio-economic, 2) an AI-based digital patient library and algorithms for risk stratification, early diagnosis, and disease progression, and 3) a highly innovative multifunctional AI-based and computational modelling DSS and mobile app for informing a patient-centred, personalised, prevention and treatment strategies (Fig. 1). Fig. 1: Three main …

A step forward for Europe’s fusion research future

A step forward for Europe’s fusion research future

Published by skeptic

Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, Spokesperson for Energy, European Commission, explains the upcoming plans to accelerate Europe’s leadership in fusion research and development. With vast potential to offer a safe, cost-efficient, and sustainable energy option, fusion presents a promising opportunity for the future of Europe’s energy system. Recognising this, the European Commission (EC) is committed to accelerating research and innovation in fusion to advance the EU’s position in the global race towards commercialisation. The EC drives and funds fusion research through the Euratom Research and Training Programme and partnerships like Fusion for Energy and the EUROfusion consortium, and plays a central role in the international ITER project aimed at demonstrating the scientific feasibility of fusion power. The year ahead looks to be a pivotal moment for the Commission’s fusion direction, as it prepares the EU’s first dedicated Fusion Strategy. The strategy will set out a number of actions to help the EU maintain leadership and competitiveness in fusion. To find out more about the EU’s recent progress in fusion research and the plans for its future, The Innovation …

Capacity building for biomanufacturing scale-up in Nova Scotia

Capacity building for biomanufacturing scale-up in Nova Scotia

Published by skeptic

The Verschuren Centre is filling the critical scale-up gap for vital biobased manufacturing companies to solve global challenges. Biomanufacturing, a broad term encompassing a range of green technologies including precision fermentation, presents a pivotal technology to address key global challenges of human and environmental health. Numerous reports estimate the future impact of biotechnology as replacing 60% of the world’s physical inputs and alleviating 45% of the world’s disease burden in the next 20 years. This represents a market value in the trillions of dollars for companies targeting sustainable solutions for the future. Biomanufacturing takes advantage of rapid advances in genetic engineering to create virtually any intermediary product that is otherwise typically derived from petrochemicals, and, as such, has huge potential to impact the country’s path to a net zero manufacturing future. Often referred to as the internet of the future, the potential product array seems infinite and will impact almost every aspect of our daily lives. The bridge to success To accelerate deployment of this green supply chain of intermediaries and functional materials, key capital-intensive …

Communication, navigation, and surveillance for low-altitude aircraft

Communication, navigation, and surveillance for low-altitude aircraft

Published by skeptic

The ANTENNAE project aims to adapt 3GPP telecommunications standards for communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) services to support safe and efficient low-altitude aircraft operations. The ANTENNAE project explores the applicability of 3GPP telecommunications standards for delivering the full range of communication, navigation, and surveillance services to all classes of aircraft operating at low altitude while supporting key Air Traffic Management (ATM) and U-space stakeholders. The ANTENNAE solution looks at the use of 5G and next-generation (6G and beyond) cellular networks through a hybrid connectivity framework that integrates terrestrial (TN) and non-terrestrial (NTN) systems. The integrated CNS concept leverages efficient spectrum use to offer greater service resilience, improved connection capacity, and the service continuity needed for cost-efficient, safe aviation operations at low altitude. From take-off to landing: The critical role of CNS in aviation Communication, navigation, and surveillance is the cardiovascular system of airspace management, enabling safe aviation operations in crowded airspace where thousands of aircraft are flying. CNS was originally designed for legacy high-altitude aircraft, with three fragmented and poorly integrated domains: ‘C’, ‘N’, and …

Design enablement teams under the European Chips Act

Design enablement teams under the European Chips Act

Published by skeptic

VUO-IC as Finland’s gateway to making complex SoCs a reality. Europe’s ambition to strengthen its semiconductor and electronics value chains has been clearly articulated through the European Chips Act. Beyond headline investments in manufacturing capacity, pilot lines, and research infrastructures, the Chips Act recognises a more subtle but equally critical challenge: turning ideas, architectures, and system concepts into functional devices on silicon. For many European companies–especially SMEs, deep-tech startups, and system houses–the primary bottleneck is not creativity, but access to design execution capability. Advanced SoC development, mixed-signal integration, RF, photonics, and emerging More-than-Moore technologies require specialised workflows, reusable IP, experienced teams, and early access to prototyping paths. Building this capability independently is time-consuming, capital-intensive, and often takes the focus away from what’s important for business. To address this gap, the Chips Act introduced Design Enablement Teams (DETs) as part of the broader European Chip Design Platform (EuroCDP). DETs act as structured, application-oriented entry points into Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem. Their role is not to replace commercial design houses or academic research, but to connect users to …

Why Europe’s digital future depends on intelligent networks

Why Europe’s digital future depends on intelligent networks

Published by skeptic

Prianca Ravichander, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Tecnotree, stresses why intelligent networks are crucial to Europe’s digital future. Europe has spent the last decade laying the physical foundations of its digital future at historic scale. Across fibre, mobile spectrum, edge infrastructure, and cloud interconnects, more than €500bn has been invested in digital connectivity. Today, over 80% of Europe’s population has access to 5G coverage, and fibre networks pass most urban households. By traditional measures, Europe is well connected. Yet, a paradox has emerged. Despite rising infrastructure investment, telecom revenues across Europe remain largely flat, average revenue per user continues to decline, and the majority of economic value created on top of connectivity is captured outside the telecom sector – by hyperscalers, digital platforms, and application ecosystems. The problem Europe now faces is not a shortage of connectivity, but a shortage of value creation. As Europe accelerates 5G deployment and begins laying the conceptual groundwork for 6G, the defining question is no longer how fast networks are, but how intelligent they are. Connectivity …