(Credit: Pixabay)PassiveLogic has secured $15 million in funding from NVIDIA venture investment arm NVentures to continue advancing its platform that provides autonomous building control systems.
The PassiveLogic software is designed to help building operators, architects, engineers, and contractors automate their systems and advance on-site intelligence to meet operational needs and environmental, social, and governance goals. The investment brings the money PassiveLogic has raised to more than $80 million.
PassiveLogic CEO Troy Harvey says it has created the first “industrial-grade” artificial intelligence platform for building management systems that go beyond research-centric deep learning and can accumulate various models for multiple users. The company’s Hive control platform combines sensors, the Internet of Things, and controllable equipment for an autonomous engine built on the Quantum digital twin standard.
The company calls the Hive a “brain for buildings” and its AI framework merges system code, training, and inferencing into a single model. The company says it is 10-times faster to install than conventional automation systems.
PassiveLogic recently partnered with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as part of a Department of Energy program to further develop AI in smart building control systems. As part of the two-year project, the DOE is financing $1 million for PNNL to further contribute to PassiveLogic’s technology.
The DOE says integrating smart controls and sensors could save as much as 29% of on-site energy consumption. Additionally, use of the smart systems can cut and manage 10% to 20% of peak energy loads in commercial buildings. The Energy Information Administration says buildings accounted for 39% of the United States’ total energy consumption in 2021.
Smart building systems can help cut energy use and improve emissions as buildings make up an estimated 40% of the world’s emissions output. Those positive impacts of smart buildings are also helping grow the energy management systems market, which is expected to grow by more than 16% per year through 2030, according to Report Linker.
PassiveLogic’s technology is run on the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI and robotics platform. It is a member of NVIDIA Inception, a program that helps grow startups. Other PassiveLogic investors include Brookfield, Keyframe, RET, Era, and A/O Proptech.
