We were proud to be among the many companies that landed in Las Vegas for CES the year. Applications of our technology have primarily been for defense purposes to date as we’ve worked closely with our government customers to develop our current set of solutions – but I’m eager to see what the commercial market may hold for HevenDrones, and excited to fit what we are building into a new landscape of commercial mobility.
A few learnings from my time in Vegas:
Hydrogen is coming out of the woodwork
I’m excited to see new and very mature applications for hydrogen power, particularly in the automotive sector. Hyundai is making enormous strides in this area, and their level of product maturity is impressive. Like us, they’ve recognized some critical gaps in the hydrogen ecosystem and are partnering to build stronger value chains and production capacity that can ultimately fuel full fleets. Ultimately, these types of innovations create potential for the full ecosystem of hydrogen-powered mobility, and I’m eager to see what’s next.
AI-enabled fleet management is coming faster than we think
A natural next application for AI is in fleet management for large fleets of various platforms such as ours. We are able to take human operators out of the loop, enabling AI to manage full systems. I was pleased to see similar work from others across domains, including a fascinating solution from Rec-Sea that turns any vessel into an autonomous chip, working with sensor fusion technology to integrate data from multiple sources and operating a marine-specific AI neural network that is trained on large amounts of data. Turning non-autonomous platforms into autonomous ones is a fascinating vision for future operations, particularly in thinking about multi-domain fleet management solutions.
The world of commercial drone deliveries is close
Everyone has been talking for many years about the power drones hold for deliveries, but regulatory issues and safety concerns have largely kept this from coming to fruition. I was excited to see an announcement that Walmart will expand drone delivery to 75% of households in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area by the end of 2024 (!). Drone deliveries will be Walmart’s fastest delivery option, promised in under 30 minutes and sometimes taking just 10 minutes, and about three-quarters of items in a Walmart store will meet the delivery requirements for drones. The potential of an economy powered by drones is significant, and I couldn’t help thinking about what else could be accomplished with a ready supply of clean hydrogen fuels in cities, as will come to fruition through the Biden Administration’s Hydrogen Hubs program.
Even at a commercial conference, national security concerns were on full display
One of the things I keep hearing in my conversations is that business in the U.S. is increasingly operating in the shadow of a Chinese threat. This is certainly more true in the defense sector, but I noted DJI’s absence from this year’s CES program. Turns out, they aren’t allowed to display their drone products – any company on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List wasn’t allowed in this year. An indicator of how quickly tensions are escalating – and the urgent need to find solutions that aren’t reliant on a China-controlled supply chain.
Bentzion
