ThinkLabs AI is a specialized AI development and deployment company. Pulse 2.0 interviewed ThinkLabs AI founder and CEO Josh Wong to learn more about the company.
Josh Wong’s Background
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What is Josh Wong’s background? Wong said:
“Electric power engineering background; In cleantech for 20 years – hydrogen fuel cells, battery storage, but most time spent in the utility; Founded Toronto Hydro’s smart grid team, led first-of-a-kind projects – smart metering, community energy storage, electric vehicle charging, line sensors, data analytics, etc. Directly worked on Ontario’s green energy legislation. Left behind a 25-year smart grid roadmap; Left Toronto Hydro and founded Opus One in 2011. Focused on software intelligence for the grid through advanced physics-based modeling (i.e. “digital twin”) of the grid, and introduced the leading optimization software for grid power flow. Became the world’s #1 Distributed Energy Resource Management (DERMS) software rated by Guidehouse (GE Vernova Ranked #1 in 2024 Guidehouse Insights Leaderboard for Grid DERMS | GE Digital), and championed “transactive energy” markets for dynamic pricing and trading of distributed energy.
Sold Opus One to GE in 2022.”
Formation Of ThinkLabs
How did the idea for the company come together? Wong shared:
“Following exit of Opus One to GE, worked on the GE’s Grid-of-the-Future Strategy. Throughout my career I’ve always firmly believed that the grid is the “platform” of the energy transition, and the greatest bottleneck and enabler to decarbonization via electrification (e.g. electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar, wind, batteries, etc.). Yet is is notably a complex infrastructure, regulated environment, and with large slow changing utilities that are now forced to adopt a different pace of change. ‘Grid Orchestration’ is the term used to intelligently coordinate and optimize the many resources appearing on the grid. This is a complex task, and to do it we need to move towards automation. Traditional electrical engineering is physics-based/mathematical, so highly accurate with the data set is complete and quality is good (i.e. can calculate a formula like x=y). However, engineering is far too data accuracy sensitive, cumbersome, and slow to compute for traditional math. You basically need supercomputers and more to run it in real time.
AI is the new tool which has a great potential to solve this problem. AI on its own cannot “learn” the complexities power system, subject to hallucinations, hence not suitable for mission critical infrastructure operations. The innovation is in physics-informed AI, i.e. using engineering to train AI, so that AI mimics engineering, but operates in a far more data-robust, optimized, and faster manner. This is what inspired our company – to be a leader in physics-informed AI and become a copilot for mission critical electrical infrastructure, to accelerate its important role in the energy transition. Translates into our mission to empower critical industries and infrastructure with trustworthy AI towards global energy sustainability.
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Wong reflected:
“Showing utility customers our demo and seeing their excitement, hearing their dreams, and getting their feedback.”
Core Products
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What are the company’s core products and features? Wong explained:
“ThinkLabs Copilot is a digital assistant that understands the mathematics of the real world. Our proprietary physics-informed AI digital twin of real world engineering phenomena provides a foundation model for complex engineering systems.”
“Key product features and use cases include continuous real time situational awareness of grid power flow, model validation of utility data sources, grid congestion and violation management even under high levels of renewables, dispatch assistance, and flexibility planning of utility capital programs.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Wong and the team faced in building the company? Wong acknowledged:
“Working in a critical infrastructure industry has challenges including complex and long sales cycle, regulatory rules, security reviews, and change management. Having the right team is key, having launched and sold a company in this space, marrying talent from power systems engineering, AI, and cloud computing.”
Evolution Of ThinkLabs’ Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Wong noted:
“We just launched in April 1st 2024 so we’re heads down executing our product roadmap, taking our proven physics-informed AI technology into productization and commercialization.”
“Feedback from utility customers and industry partners (e.g. systems integrations, cloud providers, other technology vendors) have been very positive, so we’re staying on course with a focus on execution and delivery.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Wong cited:
“Launching from GE Vernova as its first startup stage spinout; Closing our seed round with a dream team of world class investors – Powerhouse Ventures, Active Impact Investments, Blackhorn, Amplify, Mercuria, and a US national energy company; Doubling the size of our team in two months since launch.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Wong about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“Our customers are large utilities, so any results is still currently confidential; Nonetheless we’re pleased to be passing all our technical milestones to deliver upon customer value; Trustworthy AI that provides accurate continuous situational awareness to utilities even under high penetration of distributed energy resources (e.g. solar, storage, electric vehicle charging).”
Funding
Upon asking Wong about the company’s funding news, he revealed:
“We’ve raised a $5 million seed round with a syndication including Powerhouse Ventures and Active Impact Investments as coleads, as well as Blackhorn, Amplify, Mercuria, and a US national energy company.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Wong assessed it is $5 billion.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Wong affirmed:
“Physics-informed AI technology moat; Team experience around launching product to market at the intersection of power systems engineering, AI, and cloud; Ecosystem partners, including GE, systems integrators and cloud providers.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Wong concluded:
“Launch of our first commercially available product in 2024; Executing on the North American market, UK and Australia also a focus.”
