Innovation matters.
When it comes to energy manufacturing, every production and technological nuance counts, and it takes careful thinking to make this process work. Innovation is paramount, and so many of the factors making the energy industry innovative create demand and increases cost. Being efficient and innovative isn’t just interesting; it’s necessary.
While new technologies are increasingly becoming more energy-efficient, the demand remains high, leading to the need for cost efficiency. The world demands cheaper energy, yet a range of factors—from the prices of oil to the regulations designed to lower carbon emissions—have made energy prices rise over time. Industry leaders need to find a way to provide cheaper, cleaner, energy, and automated processes.
Deepak Chandran is a leader in the world of automated energy processes, manufacturing, and new technology. Chandran is the President & CTO of Iris Energy LLC. Iris Energy is a New Jersey-based company that builds products with intelligence built in, to cater to any discrete or process manufacturing industry globally. Iris provides a complete ecosystem for any industry to manage and operate their processes and plants, without any proprietary or closed systems, and is remotely installable and configurable.
Early in his career, Deepak worked as an innovator daring to dream and do things which his colleagues and business did not believe were possible. “With conviction, self-leadership, and motivation, I was able to persuade and look out for opportunities with business and people who would have similar thoughts, and when you look for something deeply and with conviction you will find it, and I found mine. I have been lucky enough to hold good positions and titles to commensurate with the job that I was entrusted with and made quite a lot of disruptions in the field that I was involved in. I was successful in most of my attempts, and always stuck to my core proficiency of innovation. I have helped build organizations for business, funded and built several of mine, been involved in obtaining venture funds for my own and other startups.”
Deepak continues,
“Iris Energy LLC, in the USA has primarily been a company with emphasis on Innovation, Research and Development, and usually conducted contracted research for “imagined, and non-existing product” for medium to large corporations, so was never consumer facing.
Since 2019 Iris started developing its own portfolio of Intelligent Sensors and a range of products suitable for Oil/Gas/ Chemical /Mining industries primarily, which can also be used in any plant where there is manufacturing of any kind involved. As of now we have very specialized and affordable sensors and products that enable Prescriptive Maintenance for Tribology applications. We also have AI /NN based IIoT Platforms, Touchless Protocols using Hologram, voice, and autonomous robots for routine maintenance etc, and various in-house algorithms and process to enable these products and solutions. We cover the entire spectrum from the hardware to the Platform (our own) as well as which can be hosted on any cloud or on premise or be universally integrated with any application or ERP or any custom requirement.
The legacy of Iris started around 30 years ago as “Brain & Iris” in the year 1995, and by 2003 had 8 verticals. I shut down 5 because of being too ahead of time, I continued with three, and what I shut down is now gaining traction, and I hope to complete it all in the next one decade. Iris has been in the forefront in bringing products which conserve and are energy efficient and have built and delivered several products and won several accolades in that arena. Iris Energy now boasts of sensors which do not use batteries to power themselves, and thus continuing the “Innovation paradigm.”
Deepak took office of Iris Energy in 2015. “I realized we were sitting on excellent products and services, some very futuristic. We were just in time to deliver and keep the wheel of success ongoing to help the communities and industries we serve, and more broadly, the people among them. I realized we had a deep responsibility to our environment and our planet.”
Deepak’s world is industrial automation, and he has significant thoughts on where this world is moving. “The future of Industrial Automation has already moved beyond “industry 4.0” to “industry 5.0,” which is now in the adoption stage. Human collaboration with robots or human-centered interaction with robots will be the new wave. I had envisaged and predicted this a decade ago and Iris’s website front page already visualizes this. Robotics and cyber-physical systems integration within industrial product/process will become a de-facto requirement for products or services of the future. Voice as a key biometric input will drive and form a major noninvasive PII (personally identifiable information) when factored with zero knowledge proof-based systems to give rise to a lot of interesting methods to perform commonly performed transactional authentication.”
In the next five years, Deepak personally sees himself inventing and contributing to the society with Industrial and Aquaculture/ Agrotech/ Environ/Specific Health Tech and Industry 5.0-related products and Platforms. Deepak asserts that IRIS Energy will also see traction and grow to be a leading player to provide Industry 5.0-enabled experiences, products, and systems.
“Iris has grown 100 percent year over year since its operations in the USA, except for the year 2017 and 2020, and we see triple digit growth in the coming years. We want to add more human resources, and thus contribute to the economic growth within the USA, and accelerate manufacturing to be self-sufficient and thus contribute within our society and community. Iris has significant potential orders and offers from its various customers globally, thus making us focus on scalability building. It’s a challenge of growth and I am confident that we will be able to surpass and overcome this challenge, too.”
