Slush’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to offer, in record time, a unique overview of the most promising advances: artificial intelligence, robotics, low-carbon materials, energy transition… all fields in which the major transformations of tomorrow are already taking shape.
And while AI naturally took center stage, the 2025 edition above all highlighted the richness and diversity of ongoing innovations, technological breakthroughs reshaping construction, industry, and infrastructure alike.
1. Driven by AI, robotics enters every sector, including construction.
At Slush this year, as already seen a few weeks earlier at Gitex in Dubai, a notable shift was visible across the exhibition halls: after decades of development, physical artificial intelligence (“Physical AI”) is beginning to move out of laboratories and into traditionally low-digitized sectors such as construction and agriculture.
The Spanish startup Voltrac perfectly illustrates this convergence between mature AI algorithms and advanced robotics. Its autonomous tractors combine years of algorithmic refinement with robust hardware. Having recently raised €7 million, the company offers autonomous driving solutions adapted to all types of terrain, enabling operators to optimize operations while reducing labor needs.
In the energy sector, Lithuanian startup Tiltsun is developing robots capable of automatically installing photovoltaic panels in optimized environments — deserts, flat land, and other underutilized areas. This automation significantly accelerates the deployment of solar farms while reducing installation costs.
Beyond Slush itself, Field AI perhaps best embodies this trend. The U.S.-based startup raised $400 million last August, notably from Nvidia’s founders, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. Its goal: to develop orchestration software for Boston Dynamics’ robots, enabling their deployment across construction, industry, agriculture, and logistics.
This convergence between tech giants and established robotics players confirms that Physical AI has become a major strategic priority.
2. New low-carbon materials move toward scale
After years of R&D, bio-based and low-carbon materials are also beginning to move beyond the experimental phase and into commercialization. This momentum is accompanied by partnerships with major industry players, signaling growing readiness for adoption.
Finland-based Elementic, for instance, produces biochar bricks — a plant-based charcoal that sequesters carbon. Used for road sublayers, these bricks offer a low-carbon alternative to traditional materials. In a similar vein, Estonian startup Fibenol valorizes lignin, a by-product of the wood industry, to replace petroleum-based bitumen in road asphalt.
Another Estonian company, Myceen, draws inspiration from living systems to create high-performance insulation panels made from mycelium (fungal roots). These bio-based materials offer excellent thermal performance while being fully compostable at end of life, addressing circular economy challenges.
Finally, Paebble demonstrates that these new materials can appeal to major industrial players. Based in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, the startup has developed an accelerated CO₂ mineralization technology. The result is a high-performance material that permanently sequesters carbon in concrete and can be used as a supplementary cementitious material to replace cement. It is already used in the construction of data centers, prefabricated dikes, and floor coverings.
With a pilot plant operational in Rotterdam since November 2023 and a $25 million funding round led by Capnamic last year, with participation from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and cement giant Holcim, Paebble is preparing to launch a commercial plant by 2027.
3. Heat and cooling: A new front for decarbonization
The low-carbon transition is also tackling one of the most energy-intensive yet least visible parts of our economy: the production of heat and cooling, which is essential both to industrial processes and building comfort.
Long overlooked, this sector, which accounts for a massive share of global CO₂ emissions, is now the focus of breakthrough innovations aimed at dramatically improving energy efficiency.
Finnish startup Elstor, for example, has developed thermal batteries capable of storing renewable industrial heat at very high temperatures, allowing factories to eliminate fossil fuels from their processes
Another Finnish company, Reduciner, focuses on optimizing existing industrial processes. Through detailed analysis of thermal flows, its technology identifies and corrects inefficiencies, enabling rapid and cost-effective decarbonization.
Finally, also in Finland, Hygron offers an ingenious solution for buildings: a membrane that dehumidifies incoming air in air-conditioning systems. By treating humidity separately, this technology can reduce energy consumption of existing systems by up to 30% — a perfect example of high-impact retrofit innovation.
As these solutions mature, the real challenge now lies in scaling them up. Because it is precisely their ability to reach scale, along with that of all low-carbon technologies, that will determine our capacity to deeply transform heat and cooling systems, and ultimately succeed in the energy transition.
