AI concrete startup AICrete has announced that it has raised $4 million in seed funding led by venture capital firms CLEAR Ventures and VoLo Earth Ventures, along with Cortical Ventures. 

AICrete is a recipe-as-a-service platform that optimizes materials for cleaner and more cost-efficient concrete. The company responds to the wastefulness of conventional concrete production that often relies on “intuition” to craft mixture recipes. However, the resulting concoctions aren’t always necessarily the most cost-effective or environmentally friendly option. This under-optimization leads to waste and sustainability issues in a trillion-dollar industry responsible for 8-10% of carbon dioxide emissions globally. 

AICrete addresses this issue by utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and domain knowledge to create more optimal concrete mixtures for ready-mix and precast concrete producers. Clients state what properties and objectives they want to achieve and provide raw material data sheets and costs for concrete mixtures they want AICrete to optimize. The company then tests various combinations of the raw materials to achieve the clients’ goals while minimizing cost and carbon dioxide per cubic yard. According to AICrete, this method allows concrete producers to reduce their carbon footprint by up to 35%.

"AICrete technology is a great approach and should be of significant benefit to many concrete producers,” said Martin Scheiber, Director of Manufacturing at Clark Pacific, a manufacturer of prefabricated building systems. “The increasingly complex nature of material selection and proportioning, along with the continuing increases in raw materials costs as well as lowering the overall carbon footprint of concrete will mandate the need for this type of service to the R&D, quality and operational teams throughout the industry." 

According to AICrete’s press release, the company will use this round of funding to expand its proof of concept program to several key concrete producers; expand its database and improve its predictive machine learning models; and develop software and robotic systems to automate data collection. 

While AICrete offers a service that mitigates the environmental impacts of the concrete industry, one could argue that reducing concrete producers’ carbon emissions by 35% still isn’t enough. This is especially poignant as concrete and construction alternatives develop and increase in popularity, such as 3D printing or organic building materials. With ambitious goals, including the aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a quarter by 2030 and achieve carbon neutral concrete by 2050, the continued usage of concrete, even more optimized, should be called into question.