University of Houston's new hub scores $100,000 grant from energy co.

seeing green

The University of Houston has received a grant from the Baker Hughes Foundation. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

A Houston school is cashing in a major gift from a local energy company in order to support the industry's future workforce, research, and more.

The University of Houston Energy Transition Institute received a $100,000 grant from the Baker Hughes Foundation last week, which will work towards the ETI’s goals to support workforce development programs, and environmental justice research.

The program addresses the impact of energy transition solutions in geographical areas most-affected by environmental impacts.

“We are proud to support the University of Houston in its environmental justice research and workforce development programs; at Baker Hughes, we strive to take energy forward, and are committed to a fair and just energy transition,” says Chief Sustainability Officer Allyson Book in a news release. “Novel educational approaches centered around social, climate and environmental justice are crucial to creating a sustainable future for generations to come.”

The grant aims to help ETI in analyzing environmental footprints of energy use processes, energy use processes, impact on health, and emissions, as well as support the university’s Energy Scholars Program, which focuses on research programs on carbon management, hydrogen, and circular plastics for undergraduate students.The donation also supports Baker Hughes’ work with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that work to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education for all.”

“We look forward to working with the Baker Hughes Foundation to address grand challenges in energy and chemicals and create a sustainable and equitable future for all,” says Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation at UH.

ETI launched a year ago through a $10 million grant from Shell USA Inc. and Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc., and is led by Joe Powell, who opted to take the helm of the program over retiring, telling EnergyCapital that it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

UH has announced a central campus innovation hub that will house UH's programs for STEM, social sciences, business and arts. Slated to open in 2025, the 70,000 square foot hub will house a makerspace, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, the Energy Transition Institute, innovation programs, and Presidential Frontier Faculty labs and offices.

“The University of Houston aims to transform lives and communities through education, research, innovation and service in a real-world setting," Krishnamoorti says in a news release. “I am confident that working together we will make a greater impact.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

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A new ranking looks at the Houston companies with the most patents granted in 2022. Photo via Getty Images

These are the Houston companies with the most patents granted last year

by the numbers

Two major players in Houston’s energy industry are also major players in the patent arena.

A new ranking from the analytics arm of patent law firm Harrity & Harrity puts Saudi Aramco, whose North American headquarters is in Houston, and Halliburton, whose global headquarters is in Houston, puts them in a tie for the number of U.S. patents with 963 patents received in 2022. Saudi Aramco and Halliburton now share the title of Houston’s patent king.

Saudi Aramco saw a 12 percent rise in patents granted in 2022 compared with 2021, according to Harrity & Harrity’s Patent 300 report, while Halliburton experienced a 5 percent jump. Each company tied for 44th place among the top 300 U.S. patient recipients in 2022.

According to the report, Samsung Electronics (8,513 patents) knocked IBM off its longtime pedestal as the No. 1 recipient of U.S. patents. IBM (4,743 patents) now holds the No. 2 position.

Many of Aramco’s U.S. patents come from its R&D centers in Houston, Boston, and Detroit. The Houston R&D hub opened in 2014 and underwent an expansion three years later.

Aramco, a Saudi Arabia-based supplier of oil and natural gas, also generates patents through academic partnerships, such as the one it established last year with Rice University’s Carbon Hub. Aramco has committed $10 million over five years to the carbon initiative.

“While patents are a leading indicator of innovation, the ultimate goal is to create value through the development of solutions that help to address a particular need,” Aramco says. “Such results are often only possible with significant upfront investments, and patents make it possible to recoup these costs and potentially generate additional revenue through commercialization.”

Last year, Aramco boasted that it ranked first in the oil and gas industry for U.S. patents (864) granted in 2021. Until 2011, Aramco had received only 100 U.S. patents over a 78-year span.

“Many of the patents are for innovations Aramco uses itself for competitive advantage, although they can also be licensed to others, creating extra value for the company,” Jamil Bagawi, then the company’s chief engineer, wrote in 2021.

Halliburton also has ramped up its patenting efforts in recent years.

According to Houston law firm Yetter Coleman, those efforts kicked into high gear after Halliburton lost a fracking patent lawsuit to Tomball-based BJ Services, which is now out of business. In 2003, a Houston jury awarded $98 million in damages to BJ in the case, and Halliburton had to stop selling the system that allegedly infringed on BJ’s patent.

In the five years before the verdict, Halliburton averaged 142 patent awards a year, according to Yetter Coleman. The law firm reported in 2013 that Halliburton subsequently averaged 234 patents a year.

Today, of course, Halliburton has far exceeded those numbers. And it vigorously defends its growing patent portfolio. In September 2022, for instance, three subsidiaries of the oilfield services giant filed two lawsuits against Houston-based rival U.S. Well Services alleging infringement of 14 Halliburton patents.

IAM, a website that reports about the intellectual property industry, noted that when Halliburton sued U.S. Well Services, “IP professionals in the oil and gas industry may well have reached for the popcorn. Battles of this magnitude rarely break out in their slice of the patent world.”

Halliburton and Aramco may be the goliaths in Houston’s patent world, but they’re not the only local organizations to appear on the Patent 300 list for 2022. Other Houston-area companies that made the cut are:

  • Spring-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise, No. 84. The tech company received 511 U.S. patents in 2022, down 4 percent from the previous year.
  • Houston-based SLB (Schlumberger), No. 117. The oilfield services company received 372 U.S. patents in 2022, down 14 percent from the previous year.
  • Houston-based Baker Hughes, No. 123. The oilfield services company received 350 U.S. patents in 2022, down 11 percent from the previous year.
  • ExxonMobil, No. 156. The oil and gas company received 281 U.S. patents in 2022, down 8 percent from the previous year. It is in the process of moving its headquarters from Irving to Spring.
  • United Imaging Healthcare, No. 253. The Chinese healthcare equipment company, whose North American headquarters is in Houston, received 175 U.S. patents in 2022, up 31 percent from the previous year.
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Houston humanoid robotics startup Persona AI hires new strategy leader

new hire

Houston-based Persona AI, a two-year-old startup that develops robots for heavy industry, has hired an automation and robotics professional as its head of commercial strategy.

In his new position, Michael Perry will focus on building Persona AI’s business development operations, coordinating with strategic partners and helping early adopters of the company’s humanoids. Target customers include offshore platforms, shipyards, steel mills and construction sites.

Perry previously served as vice president of business development at Boston Dynamics, where he led market identification for robotics, and as an executive at DJI. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and government studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Now is the perfect time to join Persona AI as we rapidly close the gap between what’s possible in the lab versus what’s driving real commercial value,” Perry says. “Building industry-hardened humanoid hardware and production-deployable AI is only one piece of the puzzle.”

“Getting humanoids into operations for heavy industry will require the systematic commercial and operational work that makes enterprises humanoid-ready and defining the business case, solving the integration challenges, and building the playbook for safe, scalable adoption,” he adds. “That’s what I’m here to build.”

Rice to lead Space Force tech institute under $8.1M agreement

space deal

Rice University has signed an $8.1 million cooperative agreement to lead the U.S. Space Force University Consortium/Space Strategic Technology Institute 4 (SSTI).

The new entity will be known as the Center for Advanced Space Sensing Technologies (CASST) at Rice and will focus on developing innovative remote sensing technologies.

“This investment positions Rice at the forefront of the technologies that will define how we see, understand and operate in space,” Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in a news release. “By bringing together advanced remote sensing, AI-driven analysis and cross-institutional expertise, CASST will help transform raw space data into real-time insight and expand the frontiers of scientific discovery.

The news comes shortly after the Texas Space Commission approved a nearly $14.2 million grant for the newly created Center for Space Technologies at Rice.

David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute, will lead CASST. Alexander is also an inaugural member of the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium and he serves on the boards of the Houston Spaceport Development Corporation, SpaceCom and the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. The team also includes Rice professors and staff Kevin Kelly, Tomasz Tkaczyk, Kenny Evans, Kaden Hazzard, Mark Jernigan and Vinod Veedu, and collaborators from Houston-based Aegis Aerospace, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Santa Barbara and Georgia Institute of Technology.

In addition to bringing new space sensor innovation, the team will also work to miniaturize sensors while developing and implementing low-resource fabrication techniques, according to Rice. The researchers will also utilize AI and machine learning to analyze sensor data.

The U.S. Space Force uses space sensors to provide real-time information about space environments and assess potential threats. CASST is the fourth Space Strategic Technology Institute established by the USSF.

“Rice has helped shape the modern era of space research, and CASST marks a bold step into what comes next,” David Sholl, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in a news release. “As space becomes more contested and more essential to daily life, the ability to rapidly sense, interpret and act on what’s happening beyond Earth is critical. This center brings together the materials, engineering and data science innovations needed to deliver that capability."

The USSF University Consortium works with academic teams to develop breakthrough technologies and speed their transition into real-world applications for the U.S. Space Force.

The recent Rice award is part of $16 million over about three years. The USSF also signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Arizona in February.

The consortium has also helped facilitate several technological and commercial transitions over the last two years, including a $36 million commercial contract awarded to Axiom by Texas A&M University's in-space operations team and a follow-on $6 million contract to Axiom to build on technology developed by the University of Texas.

Leading Houston energy ecosystem rebrands for next phase

new look

Houston-based Energytech Nexus has rebranded.

The cleantech founders community will now be known as Energytech Cypher. Organizers say the new name was inspired by the Arabic roots of the word cypher, ṣifr, which is also the root of the word zero.

"A cypher is a key that unlocks what's hidden," Nada Ahmed, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Energytech Cypher, said in a news release. "And zero? Zero is where every transformation begins, the leap from 0 to 1, from idea to reality, from potential to power. We decode the energy transition by connecting the right founders, the right capital, and the right corporate partners at the right time, because the most important journey in energy is the one that takes you from nothing to something."

Energytech Nexus has rebranded to Energytech Cypher.

Co-founder and CEO Jason Ethier says that the name change better reflects the organization's mission.

"The energy transition doesn't have a technology problem. It has a connection problem," Ehtier added in the release. "The right founders exist. The right investors exist. The right partners exist. What's been missing is the infrastructure to bring them together—to decode the complexity, remove the friction, and make sure the best technologies find the markets that need them. That's what this community has always done. Energytech Cypher is the name that finally says it."

Energytech Cypher, previously known as Energytech Nexus, was first launched in 2023 and has grown from a podcast to a 130-member ecosystem. It has supported startups including Capwell Services, Resollant, Syzygy Plasmonics, Hertha Metals, Solidec and many others.

It is known for its flagship programs like the Pilotathon, which connects founders with industry partners for pilot opportunities. The event debuted in 2024.

Energytech Cypher also launched its COPILOT Accelerator last year. The accelerator partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatech sectors. The inaugural cohort included two Houston-based startups and 12 others from around the U.S.

It also hosts programs like Liftoff, Energy Tech Market, lunch and learns, CEO roundtables, investor workshops and international partnership initiatives.

Last year, Energytech Cypher also announced a new strategic ecosystem partnership with Greentown Labs, aimed at accelerating growth for clean energy startups. It also named its global founding partners, including Houston-based operations such as Chevron Technology Ventures, Collide, Oxy Technology Ventures, and others from around the world.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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