Meet 6 mentors who are helping the Houston startup scene flourish

meet the finalists

The 2025 Mentor of the Year will be announced on Nov. 13. Courtesy photos

Few founders launch successful startups alone — experienced and insightful mentors often play an integral role in helping the business and its founders thrive.

The Houston startup community is home to many mentors who are willing to lend an ear and share advice to help entrepreneurs meet their goals.

The Mentor of the Year category in our 2025 Houston Innovation Awards will honor an individual like this, who dedicates their time and expertise to guide and support budding entrepreneurs. The award is presented by Houston City College Northwest.

Below, meet the six finalists for the 2025 award. They support promising startups in the medical tech, digital health, clean energy and hardware sectors.

Then, join us at the Houston Innovation Awards this Thursday, Nov. 13 at Greentown Labs, when the winner will be unveiled. The event is just days away, so secure your seats now.

Anil Shetty, InformAI

Anil Shetty serves as president and chief medical officer for biotech company Ferronova and chief innovation officer for InformAI. He's mentored numerous medical device and digital health companies at seed or Series A, including Pathex, Neurostasis, Vivifi Medical and many others. He mentors through organizations like Capital Factory, TMC Biodesign, UT Venture Mentoring, UTMB Innovation and Rice's Global Medical Innovation program.

"Being a mentor means empowering early-stage innovators to shape, test, and refine their ideas with clarity and purpose," Shetty says. "I’m driven by the opportunity to help them think strategically and pivot early before resources are wasted. At this critical stage, most founders lack the financial means to bring on seasoned experts and often haven’t yet gained real-world exposure. Mentorship allows me to fill that gap, offering guidance that accelerates their learning curve and increases the chances of meaningful, sustainable impact."

Jason Ethier, EnergyTech Nexus

Jason Ethier is the founding partner of EnergyTech Nexus, through which he has mentored numerous startups and Innovation Awards finalists, including Geokiln, Energy AI Solutions, Capwell Services and Corrolytics. He founded Dynamo Micropower in 2011 and served as its president and CEO. He later co-founded Greentown Labs in Massachusetts and helped bring the accelerator to Houston.

"Being a mentor means using my experience to help founders see a clearer path to success. I’ve spent years navigating the ups and downs of building companies, struggling with cash flow, and making all the mistakes; mentoring gives me the chance to share those lessons and show entrepreneurs the shortcuts I wish I’d known earlier," Ethier says. "At Energytech Nexus, that role goes beyond just helping individual founders — it’s about creating a flywheel effect for Houston’s entire innovation ecosystem."

Jeremy Pitts, Activate Houston

Jeremy Pitts serves as managing director of Activate Houston, which launched in Houston last year. He was one of the founders of Greentown Labs in the Boston area and served in a leadership role for the organization between 2011 and 2015. Through Activate, he has mentored numerous impactful startups and Innovation Awards finalists, including Solidec, Coflux Purification, Bairitone Health, Newfound Materials, Deep Anchor Solutions and others.

"Being a mentor to me is very much about supporting the person in whatever they need. Oftentimes that means supporting the business—providing guidance and advice, feedback, introductions, etc," But just as important is recognizing the person and helping them with whatever challenges they are going through ... Sometimes they need a hype man to tell them how awesome they are and that they can go do whatever hard thing they need to do. Sometimes they just need an empathetic listener who can relate to how hard these things are. Being there for the person and supporting them on their journey is key to my mentorship style."

Joe Alapat, Liongard

Joe Alapat founded and serves as chief strategy officer at Houston software company Liongard and chief information officer at Empact IT, which he also owns. He mentors through Founder Fridays Houston Group, Software Day by Mercury Fund, SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation, Cup of Joey and at the Ion. He's worked with founders of FlowCare, STEAM OnDemand, Lokum and many other early stage startups.

"Being a mentor to me means unleashing an individual’s 10x—their purpose, their ikigai (a Japanese concept that speaks to a person’s reason for being)," Alapat says. "Mentoring founders in the Houston community of early stage, high-growth startups is an honor for me. I get to live vicariously through a founder’s vision of the future. Once they show me that compelling vision, I’m drawn to bring the future forward with them so the vision becomes reality with a sense of urgency."

Neal Dikeman, Energy Transition Ventures

Neal Dikeman serves as partner at early stage venture fund Energy Transition Ventures, executive in residence at Greentown Labs, and offices in and supports Rice Nexus at the Ion. He mentors startups, like Geokiln, personally. He also mentored Helix Earth through Greentown Labs. The company went on to win in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest at SXSW earlier this year. Dikeman has helped launch several successful startups himself, most recently serving on the board of directors for Resilient Power Systems, which was acquired by Eaton Corp for $150 million.

"Founders have to find their own path, and most founders need a safe space where they can discuss hard truths outside of being 'on' in sales mode with their team or board or investors, to let them be able to work on their business, not just in it," Dikeman says.

Nisha Desai, Intention

Nisha Desai serves as CEO of investment firm Intention and mentors through Greentown Labs, TEX-E, Open Minds, the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, Avatar Innovations and The Greenhouse. She currently works with founders from Solidec, Deep Anchor Solutions, CLS Wind and several other local startups, several of which have been nominated for Innovation Awards this year. She's served a board member for Greentown Labs since 2021.

"When I first started mentoring, I viewed my role as someone who was supposed to prevent the founder from making bad decisions. Now, I see my role as a mentor as enabling the founder to develop their own decision-making capability," Desai says. "Sometimes that means giving them the space to make decisions that might be good, that might be bad, but that they can be accountable for. At the end of the day, being a mentor is like being granted a place on the founder's leadership development journey, and it's a privilege I'm grateful for."

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The Houston Innovation Awards program is sponsored by Houston City College Northwest, Houston Powder Coaters, FLIGHT by Yuengling, and more to be announced soon. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact sales@innovationmap.com.

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Want to work for one of the top startups in Houston? These ones are hiring. Photo via Getty Images

Where to work: These 2024 Houston Innovation Awards finalists are hiring

growing biz

About a third of this year's startup finalists for the Houston Innovation Awards are hiring — from contract positions all the way up to senior-level roles.

The finalists, announced last week, range from the medical to energy to AI-related startups and will be celebrated next month on Thursday, November 14, at the Houston Innovation Awards at TMC Helix Park. Over 50 finalists will be recognized for their achievements across 13 categories, which includes the 2024 Trailblazer Legacy Awards that were announced earlier this month.

Click here to secure your tickets to see which growing startups win.

Let's take a look at where you could land a job at one of Houston's top startups.

Double-digit growth

When submitting their applications for the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards, every startup was asked if it was hiring. Four Houston startups replied that they are growing their teams rapidly.

Houston e-commerce startup Cart.com, one of the city's few $1 billion-plus “unicorns," reported that it is hiring approximately 50 new employees. The company, which focuses on commerce and logistics software development, secured $105 million in debt refinancing from investment manager BlackRock this summer following a $25 million series C extension round that brought Cart.com’s Series C total to $85 million. It currently has about 1,500 employees and 4 offices in three companies since it was founded in 2020, according to its website.

Houston energy tech company Enovate Ai (previously known as Enovate Upstream) reported that it is hiring 10-plus positions. The company, with 35 current employees, helps automate business and operational processes for decarbonization and energy optimization. Its CEO and founder, Camilo Mejia, sat down for an interview with InnovationMap in 2020. Click here to read the Q&A.

Square Robot is hiring about 10 new Houston employees and 15 total between Houston and other markets, according to its application. The advanced robotics company was founded in Boston in 2016 and opened its Houston office in August 2019. It develops submersible robots for the energy industry, specifically for storage tank inspections and eliminating the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments. Last year it reported to be hiring 10 to 30 employees as well, ahead of the 2023 Houston Innovators Award. It currently has 25 Houston employees and about 50 nationally.

InnoVent Renewables LLC is also hiring 15 new employees to be based in Mexico. The company launched last year with its proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology that can convert waste tires, plastics, and biomass into fuels and chemicals. The company scaled up in 2022 and has operations in Pune, India, and Monterrey, Mexico, with plans for aggressive growth across North America and Latin America. It has 20 employees in Mexico and one in Houston currently.

Senior roles

Geothermal energy startup Sage Geosystems reported that it is looking to fill two senior roles in the company. It also said it anticipates further staff growth after its first commercial energy storage facility is commissioned at the end of the year in the San Antonio metro area. The company also recently expanded its partnership with the United States Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Unit and announced this month that it was selected to conduct geothermal project development initiatives at Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. It has 12 full-time employees, according to its application.

Steady growth

Other companies reported that they are hiring a handful of new workers, which for some will increase headcount by about 50 percent to 100 percent.

Allterum Therapeutics reported that it is adding six employees to its current team of 13. The biopharmaceutical company that is under the Fannin Partners portfolio of med tech companies was awarded a $12 million product development grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas this spring.

Dauntless XR will add between five and eight employees, according to its application. It currently has four employees. The augmented reality software company, originally founded as Future Sight AR in 2018, recently secured a NASA contract for space weather technology after rebranding and pivoting. The company's CEO, Lori-Lee Elliott, recently sat down with the Houston Innovators Podcast. Click here to hear the interview.

Syzygy Plasmonics is hiring four positions to add to its team of 120. The company was named to Fast Company's energy innovation list earlier this year.

Venus Aerospace is adding five to 10 key hires to its team of 72. Andrew Duggleby founded the company with his wife and CEO Sassie in 2020, before relocating to the Houston Spaceport in 2021. Last year, Venus raised a $20 million series A round, and it successfully ran the first long-duration engine test of their Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, earlier this year.

​Seeking selectively

Other finalists are adding to their teams with a handful of new hires of contract gigs.

​Future roles

Other finalists reported that they are currently not hiring, but had plans to in the near future.

NanoTech Materials Inc., which recently moved to a new facility, is not currently. Hiring but said it plans with new funding during its series B.

Renewable energy startup CLS Wind is not hiring at this time but reported that it plans to when the company closes funding in late 2024.

The NIH grant goes toward TransplantAI's work developing more precise models for heart and lung transplantation. Photo via Getty Images

Houston health tech company scores $2.2M grant to use AI to make organ transplants smarter, more successful

future of medicine

The National Institute of Health has bestowed a Houston medtech company with a $2.2 million Fast-Track to Phase 2 award. InformAI will use the money for the product development and commercialization of its AI-enabled organ transplant informatics platform.

Last year, InformAI CEO Jim Havelka told InnovationMap, “A lot of organs are harvested and discarded.”

TransplantAI solves that problem, as well as organ scarcity and inefficiency in allocation of the precious resource.

How does it work? Machine learning and deep learning from a million donor transplants informs the AI, which determines who is the best recipient for each available organ using more than 500 clinical parameters. Organ transplant centers and organ procurement organizations (OPOs) will be able to use the product to make a decision on how to allocate each organ in real time. Ultimately, the tool will service 250 transplant centers and 56 OPOs around the United States.

The NIH grant goes toward developing more precise models for heart and lung transplantation (kidney and liver algorithms are further along in development thanks to a previous award from the National Science Foundation), as well as Phase 2 efforts to fully commercialize TransplantAI.

"There is an urgent need for improved and integrated predictive clinical insights in solid organ transplantation, such as for real-time assessment of waitlist mortality and the likelihood of successful post-transplantation outcomes," according to the grant’s lead clinical investigator, Abbas Rana, associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

“This information is essential for healthcare teams and patients to make informed decisions, particularly in complex cases where expanded criteria allocation decisions are being considered," Rana continues. "Currently, the separation of donor and recipient data into different systems requires clinical teams to conduct manual, parallel reviews for pairing assessments. Our team, along with those at other leading transplant centers nationwide, receives hundreds of organ-recipient match offers weekly.”

Organ transplantation is moving into the future, and Transplant AI is at the forefront.

InformAI has three AI-based products geared at improving health care. Photo via Getty Images

Fresh off grant, Houston health tech company's AI aims to revolutionize diagnostics, care

data-driven

In Houston, we’re lucky to have top-tier doctors in the Texas Medical Center, ready to treat us with the newest technology. But what about our family members who have to rely on rural hospitals? Thanks to one Houston company, doctors in smaller community hospitals may soon have new tools at their disposal that could improve outcomes for patients around the world.

Since InnovationMap last caught up with Jim Havelka, CEO of InformAI, two years ago, that hope has come far closer to a reality. InformAI is a VC-backed digital health company. Part of JLABS @ TMC innovation facilities, the company uses artificial intelligence to develop both diagnostic tools and clinical outcome predictors. And two of the company’s products will undergo FDA regulatory testing this year.

SinusAI, which helps to detect sinus-related diseases in CT scans, received its CE Mark — the European equivalent of FDA approval — last year and is being sold across the Atlantic today, says Havelka. He adds that in the United States alone, there are roughly 700,000 sinus surgeries that the product is positioned to support.

Another product, RadOnc-AI, is designed to help doctors prescribe radiation dose plans for head and neck cancers.

“Ideally the perfect plan would be to provide radiation to the tumor and nothing around it,” says Havelka. “We’ve built a product, RadOnc-AI, which autogenerates the dose treatment plan based on medical images of that patient.”

It can be an hours-long process for doctors to figure out the path and dose of radiation themselves, but the new product “can build that initial pass in about five minutes,” Havelka says.

That in itself is an exciting development, but because this technology was developed using the expertise of some of the world’s top oncologists, “the first pass plan is in line with what [patients would] get at tier-one institutions,” explains Havelka. This creates “tremendous equity” among patients who can afford to travel to major facilities and those that can’t.

To that end, RadOnc-AI was recently awarded a $1.55 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, or CPRIT, a state agency that funds cancer research. The Radiological Society of North America announced late last year that InformAI was named an Aunt Minnie Best of Radiology Finalist.

“It’s quite prestigious for our company,” says Havelka. Other recent laurels include InformAI being named one of the 10 most promising companies by the Texas Life Science Forum in November.

And InformAI is only gaining steam. A third product is earlier in its stage of development. TransplantAI will optimize donor organ and patient recipient matches.

“A lot of organs are harvested and discarded,” Havelka says.

His AI product has been trained on a million donor transplants to help determine who is the best recipient for an organ. It even takes urgency into account, based on a patient’s expected mortality within 90 days. The product is currently a fully functional prototype and will soon move through its initial regulatory clearances.

The company — currently backed by three VC funds, including DEFTA Partners, Delight Ventures, and Joyance Partners — is planning to do another seed round in Q2 of 2023.

“We’ve been able to get recognized for digital health products that can be taken to market globally,” says Havelka.

But what he says he’s most excited about is the social impact of his products. With more money raised, InformAI will be able to speed up development of additional products, including expanding the cancers that the company will be targeting. And with that, more and more patients will one day be treated with the highest level of care.

Eight of the 10 most-promising life science startups named at BioHouston and the Rice Alliance's event are based in Houston. Photo courtesy of Rice Alliance

Houston startups named most promising in the life science space at annual event

ones to watch

For the second time this year, Houston life science leaders and startup founders gathered to discuss the future of health care in Houston.

The annual Texas Life Science Forum hosted by BioHouston and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship was usually held during the fall before the pandemic pushed it off schedule. In February, the two organizations hosted the previous forum, but as of this month, the annual event is back on track.

The day included panels and networking, plus over 50 companies — about half of which are based in Houston — pitched their solutions across medical device, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more to the crowd.

Houston-based Bairitone Health won the Michael E. DeBakey Memorial Life Science Award, established by BioHouston in honor of the groundbreaking Houston cardiovascular surgeon. The company is creating a wearable technology that takes a more innovative approach to sleep apnea and snoring with its SOMNAR platform that detects tissue-born sounds, identifies obstructions, and more. The award was presented by Ann Tanabe, CEO of BioHouston.

Ann Tanabe, CEO of BioHouston, presented the DeBakey Award to Houston-based Bairitone Health. Photo courtesy of Rice Alliance

For the first time, the event also named a people's choice award winner, as voted on by the audience members. Baritone Health also claimed the prize.

At the conclusion of the event, the Rice Alliance and BioHouston named the 10 most promising life science companies selected by investors and presented by the Greater Houston Partnership. This year's selection included the following companies, in alphabetical order.

Autonomize

Austin-based Autonomize unlocks data and context to enable human health outcomes

bEHR Health Systems

New Orleans-based bEHR Health Systems delivers, medical, lifestyle, and social solutions to health for African Americans.

EMPIRI

EMPIRI, based in Houston, is revolutionizing cancer care with a novel technology that accurately predicts each cancer patient's treatment responses empirically, enabling doctors to make the optimal treatment selection for each cancer patient.

InformAI

Houston-based InformAI develops AI-based medical image diagnostic tools and uses large dataset synthesis to develop clinical outcome predictors for physicians, hospitals, and medical imaging/medical device companies

March Biosciences 

Houston-based March Biosciences is impacting the most challenging lymphoma and leukemia.

MRG Health-SmartCare360

MRG Health-SmartCare360, based in Houston, is a determinate of health and disease specific virtual care management technology and services company that improves patient access to care and clinical outcomes for people suffering from one or more chronic disease.

Prana Thoracic

Prana Thoracic, founded in Houston out of JLABS at TMC, is a medical device startup that's innovating for the future of early intervention in lung cancer.

Steradian Technologies

Another med device startup based in Houston, Steradian Technologies employs deep-photonics technology to diagnose respiratory diseases in seconds, all for the price of a latte.

TYBR Health

Houston-based TYBR Health makes a hydrogel that protects tendons from scarring after surgery and improves patient outcomes.

Voythos

Voythos, based in Houston, is making medical records work for today's healthcare.

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Jim Havelka of InformAI, Christa Westheimer of New Stack Ventures, and Charles Turner of Kare Technologies. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In the week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three innovators recently making headlines — from health tech founders to a venture capital rising star.

Jim Havelka, founder and CEO of InformAI

Jim Havelka, founder and CEO of InformAI, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the difference his technology can make on the health care industry. Photo courtesy of InformAI

InformAI is providing solutions for data optimizations in health care — something that'll allow for better diagnoses and treatment. Jim Havelka shares on the Houston Innovators Podcast last week that his company's success is due to being headquartered in Houston and tied to the Texas Medical Center. The company's team works out of JLABS @ TMC as well as TMC Innovation Institute.

"Those relationships have been very helpful in getting data to build these particular products," Havelka says. "Just the Texas Medical Center alone has roughly 10 million patient encounters every year. The ability to get access to data and, equally important, the medical experts has been a tremendous benefit to InformAI." Click here to read more and stream the podcast.

Christa Westheimer, venture fellow at New Stack Ventures

Need an in with a venture capital firm? This Houstonian has an idea. Photo courtesy

As a venture fellow, Christa Westheimer — who's a student at Rice University — works hard to find startups working on the next great thing. And she realizes there are so many Houston startups seeking funding, so she has some advice: get in touch.

"During my tenure as a venture fellow, I have been sifting through online resources — from Crunchbase and AngelList to LinkedIn — with the hopes of finding a really neat startup that would earn an investment from New Stack Ventures," she writes in a guest column for InnovationMap. Click here to read more.

Charles Turner, founder of Kare Technologies

Charles Turner founded Kare Technologies on the heels of a crisis — and the pandemic has accelerated the company's growth. Photo courtesy of Kare

Charles Turner saw an inefficiency in senior health care staffing — even before the industry was rocked by a pandemic. He founded Kare Technologies to use software to address this problem. In light of COVID-19, the need for better staffing solutions grew across industries and Kare expanded its features to reach hotel and restaurant workers.

"We'd always plan on doing this, and with the advent of COVID we accelerate our development on the hospitality side," Turner says. Click here to read more.

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4 Houston-area schools excel with best online degree programs in U.S.

Top of the Class

Four Houston-area universities have earned well-deserved recognition in U.S. News & World Report's just-released rankings of the Best Online Programs for 2026.

The annual rankings offer insight into the best American universities for students seeking a flexible and affordable way to attain a higher education. In the 2026 edition, U.S. News analyzed nearly 1,850 online programs for bachelor's degrees and seven master's degree disciplines: MBA, business (non-MBA), criminal justice, education, engineering, information technology, and nursing.

Many of these local schools are also high achievers in U.S. News' separate rankings of the best grad schools.

Rice University tied with Texas A&M University in College Station for the No. 3 best online master's in information technology program in the U.S., and its online MBA program ranked No. 21 nationally.

The online master's in nursing program at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston was the highest performing master's nursing degree in Texas, and it ranked No. 19 nationally.

Three different programs at The University of Houston were ranked among the top 100 nationwide:
  • No. 18 – Best online master's in education
  • No. 59 – Best online master's in business (non-MBA)
  • No. 89 – Best online bachelor's program
The University of Houston's Clear Lake campus ranked No. 65 nationally for its online master's in education program.

"Online education continues to be a vital path for professionals, parents, and service members seeking to advance their careers and broaden their knowledge with necessary flexibility," said U.S. News education managing editor LaMont Jones in a press release. "The 2026 Best Online Programs rankings are an essential tool for prospective students, providing rigorous, independent analysis to help them choose a high-quality program that aligns with their personal and professional goals."

A little farther outside Houston, two more universities – Sam Houston State University in Huntsville and Texas A&M University in College Station – stood out for their online degree programs.

Sam Houston State University

  • No. 5 – Best online master's in criminal justice
  • No. 30 – Best online master's in information technology
  • No. 36 – Best online master's in education
  • No. 77 – Best online bachelor's program
  • No. 96 – Best online master's in business (non-MBA)
Texas A&M University
  • No. 3 – Best online master's in information technology (tied with Rice)
  • No. 3 – Best online master's in business (non-MBA)
  • No. 8 – Best online master's in education
  • No. 9 – Best online master's in engineering
  • No. 11 – Best online bachelor's program
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston wearable biosensing company closes $13M pre-IPO round

fresh funding

Wellysis, a Seoul, South Korea-headquartered wearable biosensing company with its U.S. subsidiary based in Houston, has closed a $13.5 million pre-IPO funding round and plans to expand its Texas operations.

The round was led by Korea Investment Partners, Kyobo Life Insurance, Kyobo Securities, Kolon Investment and a co-general partner fund backed by SBI Investment and Samsung Securities, according to a news release.

Wellysis reports that the latest round brings its total capital raised to about $30 million. The company is working toward a Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations listing in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027.

Wellysis is known for its continuous ECG/EKG monitor with AI reporting. Its lightweight and waterproof S-Patch cardiac monitor is designed for extended testing periods of up to 14 days on a single battery charge.

The company says that the funding will go toward commercializing the next generation of the S-Patch, known as the S-Patch MX, which will be able to capture more than 30 biometric signals, including ECG, temperature and body composition.

Wellysis also reports that it will use the funding to expand its Houston-based operations, specifically in its commercial, clinical and customer success teams.

Additionally, the company plans to accelerate the product development of two other biometric products:

  • CardioAI, an AI-powered diagnostic software platform designed to support clinical interpretation, workflow efficiency and scalable cardiac analysis
  • BioArmour, a non-medical biometric monitoring solution for the sports, public safety and defense sectors

“This pre-IPO round validates both our technology and our readiness to scale globally,” Young Juhn, CEO of Wellysis, said in the release. “With FDA-cleared solutions, expanding U.S. operations, and a strong AI roadmap, Wellysis is positioned to redefine how cardiac data is captured, interpreted, and acted upon across healthcare systems worldwide.”

Wellysis was founded in 2019 as a spinoff of Samsung. Its S-Patch runs off of a Samsung Smart Health Processor. The company's U.S. subsidiary, Wellysis USA Inc., was established in Houston in 2023 and was a resident of JLABS@TMC.

Elon Musk vows to launch solar-powered data centers in space

To Outer Space

Elon Musk vowed this week to upend another industry just as he did with cars and rockets — and once again he's taking on long odds.

The world's richest man said he wants to put as many as a million satellites into orbit to form vast, solar-powered data centers in space — a move to allow expanded use of artificial intelligence and chatbots without triggering blackouts and sending utility bills soaring.

To finance that effort, Musk combined SpaceX with his AI business on Monday, February 2, and plans a big initial public offering of the combined company.

“Space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” Musk wrote on SpaceX’s website, adding about his solar ambitions, “It’s always sunny in space!”

But scientists and industry experts say even Musk — who outsmarted Detroit to turn Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker — faces formidable technical, financial and environmental obstacles.

Feeling the heat

Capturing the sun’s energy from space to run chatbots and other AI tools would ease pressure on power grids and cut demand for sprawling computing warehouses that are consuming farms and forests and vast amounts of water to cool.

But space presents its own set of problems.

Data centers generate enormous heat. Space seems to offer a solution because it is cold. But it is also a vacuum, trapping heat inside objects in the same way that a Thermos keeps coffee hot using double walls with no air between them.

“An uncooled computer chip in space would overheat and melt much faster than one on Earth,” said Josep Jornet, a computer and electrical engineering professor at Northeastern University.

One fix is to build giant radiator panels that glow in infrared light to push the heat “out into the dark void,” says Jornet, noting that the technology has worked on a small scale, including on the International Space Station. But for Musk's data centers, he says, it would require an array of “massive, fragile structures that have never been built before.”

Floating debris

Then there is space junk.

A single malfunctioning satellite breaking down or losing orbit could trigger a cascade of collisions, potentially disrupting emergency communications, weather forecasting and other services.

Musk noted in a recent regulatory filing that he has had only one “low-velocity debris generating event" in seven years running Starlink, his satellite communications network. Starlink has operated about 10,000 satellites — but that's a fraction of the million or so he now plans to put in space.

“We could reach a tipping point where the chance of collision is going to be too great," said University at Buffalo's John Crassidis, a former NASA engineer. “And these objects are going fast -- 17,500 miles per hour. There could be very violent collisions."

No repair crews

Even without collisions, satellites fail, chips degrade, parts break.

Special GPU graphics chips used by AI companies, for instance, can become damaged and need to be replaced.

“On Earth, what you would do is send someone down to the data center," said Baiju Bhatt, CEO of Aetherflux, a space-based solar energy company. "You replace the server, you replace the GPU, you’d do some surgery on that thing and you’d slide it back in.”

But no such repair crew exists in orbit, and those GPUs in space could get damaged due to their exposure to high-energy particles from the sun.

Bhatt says one workaround is to overprovision the satellite with extra chips to replace the ones that fail. But that’s an expensive proposition given they are likely to cost tens of thousands of dollars each, and current Starlink satellites only have a lifespan of about five years.

Competition — and leverage

Musk is not alone trying to solve these problems.

A company in Redmond, Washington, called Starcloud, launched a satellite in November carrying a single Nvidia-made AI computer chip to test out how it would fare in space. Google is exploring orbital data centers in a venture it calls Project Suncatcher. And Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announced plans in January for a constellation of more than 5,000 satellites to start launching late next year, though its focus has been more on communications than AI.

Still, Musk has an edge: He's got rockets.

Starcloud had to use one of his Falcon rockets to put its chip in space last year. Aetherflux plans to send a set of chips it calls a Galactic Brain to space on a SpaceX rocket later this year. And Google may also need to turn to Musk to get its first two planned prototype satellites off the ground by early next year.

Pierre Lionnet, a research director at the trade association Eurospace, says Musk routinely charges rivals far more than he charges himself —- as much as $20,000 per kilo of payload versus $2,000 internally.

He said Musk’s announcements this week signal that he plans to use that advantage to win this new space race.

“When he says we are going to put these data centers in space, it’s a way of telling the others we will keep these low launch costs for myself,” said Lionnet. “It’s a kind of powerplay.”

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