Resource Optimization

In a chapter co-authored with Udit Mathur for IDFC Foundation’s India Infrastructure Report 2024, we examine the twin resource challenges shaping India’s clean energy transition: critical minerals and water. As deployment of solar, wind, and storage accelerates, securing access to critical minerals is essential. We outline five strategic priorities for the Government’s Critical Minerals Mission—ranging from long-term planning and exploration to processing capabilities and international partnerships. We also highlight the water risk: India holds just 4% of the world’s freshwater but supports 18% of its population. With renewables expanding in water-scarce regions, we recommend stricter enforcement of water-use norms and cluster-level planning. Our core argument is that with anticipatory policy, institutional reform, and global collaboration, India can deliver on its energy transition goals without being constrained by these vital resources. #EnergyTransition #IIR2024 #ReNewTheFuture Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) MoEF&CC

India's Critical Mineral Paradox: Sitting on a Goldmine While Importing at Premium Prices I’ve spent time building businesses across consumer tech, telecom, and industrial sectors. Reading Alkesh Kumar Sharma’s strategic analysis on critical minerals was a wake-up call: India is racing toward clean energy leadership while dangerously dependent on imports for the very minerals that make it possible. Here’s the link: https://lnkd.in/dpjKHMsb This isn't just policy. It's national security and controlling our destiny in the 21st century economy. The vulnerability: India is 100% dependent on imports for lithium, cobalt, and nickel, over 90% for Rare Earth Elements. China controls 60% of global REE production and 85% of processing. We're targeting 500 GW renewable energy and net zero by 2070, while handing veto power over our clean energy future to geopolitical competitors. Having run P&Ls across markets, I know 100% import dependence isn't a supply chain. It's a strategic chokepoint. But India is sitting on untapped wealth. Geological Survey identified 5.9 million tonnes of lithium in J&K, significant REE deposits in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Yet mining contributes just 2.5% to GDP versus 13.6% in Australia. We have only 1% of global REE processing capacity. The government launched the National Critical Minerals Mission with ₹34,300 crore and auctioned 20 mineral blocks. The 2023 Mines Act opened private exploration. But execution determines everything. The urban goldmine: India generates 4 million tonnes of e-waste annually, only 10% formally recycled. Inside? The same minerals we're importing at massive cost. Attero proves what's possible. This Noida-based deeptech company achieves over 98% extraction efficiency in recovering rare earths like neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, the exact elements we currently import. With over 200 patents filed and strong profitability, Attero’s revenue crossed approximately ₹1,000 crore in FY25, growing more than 50% year-on-year. The company works with all leading auto and battery manufacturers and is now expanding capacity sixfold to process 3 lakh tonnes annually, backed by significant capital infusion across India, Poland, and the US. India banned black mass exports, powder from shredded batteries we exported as cheap scrap to China, Korea, Japan who sold it back at 15-20x the price. This ban forces domestic refining. Attero proves we have the technology. The window is closing. If we don't build resilient supply chains through domestic mining, processing, and recycling, we're building our clean energy future on someone else's foundation. We have deposits, waste streams, and companies like Attero proving Indian technology competes globally. What we need is execution speed. #CriticalMinerals #CleanEnergy #AtmanirbharBharat #Sustainability #India

It's easy to fall into the "doing things just to do them" trap in demand gen and ABM.  👉🏾 Launching campaigns because "it's our typical approach." 👉🏾Creating content because "we have to."   👉🏾 Chasing every lead with the belief that "more is always better." But with AI and automation making it easier than ever to produce generic content, it's even more crucial to pause and ask, "Why?" ✔️Why this campaign? ✔️Why this content? ✔️Why this account? ✔️Does it truly align with our ideal customer profile (ICP)? ✔️Does it resonate with their needs and challenges? ✔️Does it get results on our goals? Generic #ABM is just...marketing. And generic #demandgen is a waste of resources. 👉🏾 To break the autopilot cycle, be specific about your ideal customer. Use tools like 6sense or ZoomInfo to gather rich data, going beyond basic demographics to understand their firmographics, technographics, and psychographics.  👉🏾 Then, map your content to the buyer's journey. Don't just create content for content's sake. Use tools like HubSpot or Marketo to address their pain points and provide real value at each stage. 👉🏾 Analyze intent data. Tools like Bombora or G2 Buyer Intent can tell you which accounts are actively researching solutions like yours, allowing you to focus your ABM efforts on those showing high intent. 👉🏾 Don't forget to make it a personalized experience. Use AI-powered platforms like Persado or Phrasee to tailor your messaging to individual accounts and show a deep understanding of their needs. 👉🏾 Finally, measure what matters. Track metrics that align with your goals, not just vanity metrics. Tools like Google Analytics or Bizible can help you measure the true impact of your ABM and demand gen efforts. 👉🏾 And most importantly, find someone to challenge your thinking. A colleague, a mentor, even a (kind!) competitor. Someone who asks: ✔️Why are we targeting this account? ✔️Will this content truly resonate? ✔️Does this campaign align with our overall strategy? Break free from autopilot, be intentional, and be strategic. Then, watch your ABM and demand generation results grow. What tools or strategies do you use to focus on the "why" behind your marketing? #b2bmarketing #marketingstrategy

Quantum computing hit a wall. Photonics became the way around it. Just published in Laser Focus World my latest analysis on why quantum networking isn't just the future—it's the make-or-break technology happening RIGHT NOW. Key insights from Global Quantum Intelligence, LLC's research: 💡 Module size limits are non-negotiable: Every quantum platform hits a hard ceiling for how many qubits can fit in a single module. Superconducting circuits face cooling constraints at ~3,000 qubits per fridge. Trapped ions destabilize beyond 100-qubit 1D chains. Neutral atoms run into optical aperture limits at 10,000. Silicon spins promise millions on paper but haven't proven thermal management. The message is clear: scaling requires networking modules, not building bigger ones. 🔗 The modular revolution arrived faster than expected: While the industry chased monolithic designs, we called the distributed future in our May 2024 report: https://lnkd.in/gkbB7Txu Twelve months later, the evidence is overwhelming: Xanadu networked quantum modules across 13km of urban fiber. PsiQuantum achieved 99.72% chip-to-chip fidelity. IonQ transformed from a compute-only player into a full-stack quantum networking company through strategic acquisitions. 💰 Capital followed the technical breakthroughs: Welinq hit 90% quantum memory efficiency. Nu Quantum shipped the first rack-mounted QNU. Sparrow Quantum raised €21.5M for deterministic photon sources. Cisco jumped in with room-temperature chips producing 200 million entangled photon pairs per second. This isn't early-stage speculation—it's a race to build infrastructure. Players making it happen: Xanadu PsiQuantum Nu Quantum Welinq Sparrow Quantum Lightsynq IonQ Cisco Oxford Ionics ID Quantique Photonic Inc. QphoX Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) SilQ Connect Qunnect memQ Single Quantum Quantum Opus LLC Aegiq ORCA Computing Quandela QuiX Quantum Quantum Source If you're in photonics, this is it. You're not just making components anymore—you're building the backbone that makes million-qubit machines possible. Miss this wave, and you're watching from the sidelines. Full article: https://lnkd.in/g3pYEeqc #QuantumComputing #Photonics #QuantumNetworking #DeepTech #Innovation #FutureOfComputing

Turning discarded pineapple waste into cleaning products 🌎 Turning agricultural waste into valuable products offers a practical way to address environmental and health challenges. Fuwa Biotech, a Vietnamese company, produces natural cleaning products from fermented pineapple skins, showing how local innovation can turn waste into scalable solutions. This approach reduces reliance on synthetic cleaners, which often contain harmful chemicals with long-term impacts on health and ecosystems. Fuwa Biotech’s process exemplifies the circular economy. By using fruit waste from local producers to create cleaning products and repurposing leftover materials as fertilizer, the company minimizes waste and generates value. This closed-loop system benefits both the environment and local communities. The company's enzyme-based cleaners offer a safer alternative to synthetic products that contribute to water pollution and air quality issues. Traditional cleaning products often contain chemicals that treatment facilities can't fully manage, leading to ecological harm. Fuwa’s natural approach addresses these problems with simple, effective solutions. The model is highly scalable. It relies on common agricultural by-products and basic fermentation, making it adaptable in regions with similar resources. As demand for sustainable, non-toxic products grows, this innovation could be replicated globally, supporting both environmental and economic goals. Fuwa Biotech’s work highlights how businesses can reduce resource consumption and pollution through circular practices. It shows that impactful solutions don’t require complex technology, just a commitment to rethink waste as a resource and scale practical innovations. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #circulareconomy #circular

This week's edition of 'AI, Not KPI' shows you how to connect customer behavior, operating performance, and business outcomes in a way leaders actually use. In short, it's about creating business value. There is a fair amount of free insight in the free version, but only paid Substack subscribers will get the full operating kit files in Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs. Here's what you'll get: A North Star Builder Worksheet. This helps you move from broad ambition to a specific metric candidate. It walks through the business outcome, customer behavior, target segment, supporting feedback signals, operating drivers, data sources, owners, review cadence, and risks. The goal is to stop the team from jumping straight to a score and force the right sequence of thinking. A Metric Tree Template. This is the visual backbone of the model. It connects the business outcome to the customer behavior, then to diagnostic measures, operational drivers, team actions, and owners. It is the piece I would use in executive conversations because it makes the logic visible fast. A 90-Day Implementation Plan. This breaks the work into practical phases: alignment, validation, driver mapping, dashboard build, pilot, review, and broader rollout. The point is to help leaders move without waiting for perfect data or a giant program structure. A Dashboard Specification. This defines what executives need to see, what operating leaders need to see, what CX teams need to diagnose, and what analytics teams need to validate. Most dashboards fail because they try to serve everyone with the same view. This spec separates the views so each audience gets what they need to make decisions. A Meeting Operating Model. This is the piece most companies skip. It lays out the weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythm, including who attends, what gets reviewed, what decisions need to be made, what actions are tracked, and what gets escalated. Metrics only matter when they change meetings. A Governance Checklist. This defines metric ownership, data quality rules, change control, action ownership, review frequency, and safeguards against metric gaming. Without governance, a north star becomes another dashboard people argue about. A Leadership Memo Template. This is designed for the CEO, COO, CFO, or business unit president. It helps customer leaders make the case in business language: what outcome matters, what customer behavior predicts it, what drivers influence that behavior, what value is at stake, and what decisions leaders need to make. Industry examples across banking, SaaS, retail, healthcare, insurance, and B2B services. These examples are there for one reason: nobody should copy another company's metric blindly. But seeing the pattern across industries helps leaders design their own faster.

Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 highlights how the energy transition is increasingly shaped by access to materials, not just capacity targets or technology choices. Minerals such as copper, lithium and graphite are now central to how quickly clean energy systems can scale. Demand for these materials is rising fast across renewables, grids and storage, while supply remains concentrated and slow to diversify. This gap between ambition and material availability is becoming a practical constraint on execution. What this brings into focus is the need for integrated planning. Energy strategies cannot stop at generation or manufacturing capacity. They must account for upstream supply chains, processing capability and the long timelines involved in bringing new mineral sources online. For countries expanding clean energy at scale, sustained progress will depend on aligning energy growth with material readiness. Treating critical minerals as a core part of energy planning is no longer optional if momentum is to be maintained. #EnergyGrowth #GlobalCriticalMinerals #RatulPuri

⚛️ Sequential Quantum Computing 📑 We propose and experimentally demonstrate sequential quantum computing (SQC), a paradigm that utilizes multiple homogeneous or heterogeneous quantum processors in hybrid classical-quantum workflows. In this manner, we are able to overcome the limitations of each type of quantum computer by combining their complementary strengths. Current quantum devices, including analog quantum annealers and digital quantum processors, offer distinct advantages, yet face significant practical constraints when individually used. SQC addresses this by efficient inter-processor transfer of information through bias fields. Consequently, measurement outcomes from one quantum processor are encoded in the initial-state preparation of the subsequent quantum computer. We experimentally validate SQC by solving a combinatorial optimization problem with interactions up to three-body terms. A D-Wave quantum annealer utilizing 678 qubits approximately solves the problem, and an IBM’s 156-qubit digital quantum processor subsequently refines the obtained solutions. This is possible via the digital introduction of non-stoquastic counterdiabatic terms unavailable to the analog quantum annealer. The experiment shows a substantial reduction in computational resources and improvement in the quality of the solution compared to the standalone operations of the individual quantum processors. These results highlight SQC as a powerful and versatile approach for addressing complex combinatorial optimization problems, with potential applications in quantum simulation of many-body systems, quantum chemistry, among others. ℹ️ Romero et al - 2025

🌍 Africa has mastered extraction. The next challenge is mastering transformation. For decades, the continent exported raw minerals while the highest margins were captured elsewhere through refining, manufacturing, and industrial processing. But the future of African mining will not be defined by who digs the fastest. It will be defined by who controls more of the value chain. ⚒️➡️🏭 Consider the gap: 🔸 Copper concentrate ≠ copper cathodes 🔸 Lithium ore ≠ battery materials 🔸 Graphite concentrate ≠ battery-grade graphite 🔸 Gold doré ≠ refined bullion The resource stays the same. The economics change completely. 📈 The real opportunity sits between: Extraction ➝ Processing ➝ Manufacturing ➝ Global supply chains Africa is sitting on some of the world’s most strategic minerals for the energy transition: ⚡ Copper 🔋 Lithium 🪫 Graphite 🧪 Cobalt 🥇 Gold Yet too much value still leaves the continent before beneficiation begins. Value addition is not just about building refineries. It requires an ecosystem: ⚡ Stable power 💧 Water infrastructure 🚆 Logistics corridors 👷 Skilled technical talent 🏦 Industrial finance 📜 Predictable policy 🌐 Access to global buyers 🤝 Long-term strategic partnerships The countries and companies that solve these pieces together will shape the next industrial era of Africa. The conversation should no longer be: “How much mineral do we export?” It should be: “How much value do we retain?” 🌍 Africa’s mineral wealth is not only underground. Much of it exists in processing, technology, infrastructure, and industrial capability. That is where the next generation of growth will come from. #Africa #Mining #CriticalMinerals #EnergyTransition #BatteryMetals #Copper #Lithium #Graphite #Gold #Cobalt #Beneficiation #Industrialisation #Infrastructure #AfricaRising #MiningIndustry #ESG #ValueChain #Manufacturing #Trade #Investment

A Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) site survey is a crucial step before designing and deploying a BESS project. 1. Site Location and Accessibility ✅ Geographical Coordinates – Latitude & longitude of the site ✅ Site Access – Road conditions, distance from the main highway, transport feasibility ✅ Security – Fencing, surveillance, and access control requirements ✅ Environmental Conditions – Nearby water bodies, forests, flood zones 2. Electrical Infrastructure ✅ Grid Connection – Distance from the nearest substation, voltage levels, and grid capacity ✅ Existing Transformers & Switchgear – Availability, ratings, and need for upgrades ✅ Point of Interconnection (POI) – Location, capacity, and grid compliance requirements ✅ Power Quality Parameters – Voltage fluctuations, harmonics, and frequency variations 3. Load Profile & Energy Needs ✅ Peak Demand (MW/MWh) – Maximum and minimum load requirements ✅ Load Fluctuations – Seasonal variations and power demand curve ✅ Backup Requirements – Grid support, peak shaving, or islanding capability ✅ Future Load Expansion – Provision for additional capacity 4. Environmental & Climatic Conditions ✅ Temperature Range – Min/max temperature for BESS thermal management ✅ Humidity & Rainfall – Impact on enclosures, electrical components, and corrosion risk ✅ Seismic & Wind Load – Structural stability against earthquakes and storms ✅ Flooding Risk – Historical flood data, drainage facilities, and mitigation measures 5. Space & Layout Considerations ✅ Available Land Area – Space for BESS containers, transformers, and switchgear ✅ Ground Conditions – Soil testing, load-bearing capacity, and need for reinforcement ✅ Shading & Heat Islands – Impact of nearby structures on ventilation and cooling ✅ Fire Safety Clearances – Minimum spacing for fire protection and emergency access 6. Safety & Compliance ✅ Fire Suppression System – Availability of fire detection, suppression (e.g., FM-200, NOVEC) ✅ Local Regulations & Permits – Compliance with electricity board and environmental laws ✅ Battery Safety Standards – IEC 62619, UL 9540A, NFPA 855, and other applicable standards ✅ Hazardous Material Handling – Battery electrolyte safety and emergency handling procedures 7. Communication & Control Systems ✅ SCADA & Monitoring – Remote access, data logging, and integration with grid operations ✅ Internet Connectivity – Availability of fiber, cellular, or satellite communication ✅ Cybersecurity – Protection against hacking, data security protocols ✅ Telemetry & Alarms – Real-time alerts for temperature, SOC, SOH, and fault conditions 8. Civil & Structural Requirements ✅ Foundation Type – Concrete pad, piles, or elevated structures based on soil study ✅ Drainage & Water Management – Preventing water accumulation near battery enclosures ✅ Cable Routing & Trenching – Underground or overhead cabling for power and communication ✅ Cooling System Installation – HVAC or liquid cooling provisions