Ayesa achieves a new record with a portfolio of innovative technology projects worth 120 million euros

Ayesa, a global provider of technology and engineering services, ended 2022 with a record 29 innovation projects worth 120 million euros.

Of these, ten were funded by the EU through the Horizon 2020 (H2020) programme, and were the most important in terms of investment (totalling 95.6 million euros). The rest were funded by other organisations, mainly Red.es, the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, and the Basque Government.

All these initiatives focused on developing advanced solutions relating to cybersecurity, healthcare, sustainable transport, new ways of harnessing renewable energy and decarbonisation. They also included smart farming and construction, based on disruptive technologies such as blockchain, AI and in general all those developed in the field of data science.

‘For Ayesa, innovation is a key part of our business, as we strive to bring value to the world, as well as help create a new way of doing things which is more efficient, sustainable and driven by well-being’, notes Juan de Dios Hermosín, CTO at Ayesa. He goes on to add that it is ‘the only way of ensuring we are using and therefore offering our clients the very best technological solutions currently available on the market or being researched’.

As part of its innovation strategy, the company places particular emphasis on projects involving a high degree of technology maturity (TRL). It is also committed to making progress in fields such as offshore wind energy, industry, healthcare, hydrogen, smart grids and transport, critical infrastructure (industrial cybersecurity), user experience and leading data tech.

One of the most important EU projects Ayesa was involved in, SDN-microSENSE (which began in May 2019 and ended in October 2022), received more than ten million euros in funding, and aimed to improve the cybersecurity of electrical power and energy systems (EPES).

As part of this initiative, Ayesa created a platform for managing electrical power and energy systems, which includes cybersecurity in the decision-making process and allows cyberattacks and vulnerabilities relating to the grid to be managed in an integrated manner.

Leading the energy transition

One of the group’s main lines of research is the energy transition. As such, it is involved in various initiatives in this area, such as:

Scale-Up (ongoing): this initiative has received more than ten million euros in funding and involves Madrid (Spain), Antwerp (Belgium) and Turku (Finland) adopting smart, clean and inclusive measures in the area of transport. As part of this project, Ayesa has designed and implemented the integration of AI at bidirectional EV charging stations and park-and-ride facilities able to store renewable energy, with the aim of gaining insights into how electricity flows between vehicles and local consumers.

Super PV (ended): this project received more than 11.5 million euros in funding, and brought AI to solar power plants in order to reduce maintenance costs and create new systems for harnessing solar energy based on cutting-edge PV technology.

Custom-Art (ongoing): this initiative seeks to create curved kesterite solar panels for use on buildings and street furniture.

Islander (ongoing): with 8.3 million euros in funding, this initiative represents one of the most important the group is currently involved in. As part of the project, a complete system will be designed to make the German island of Borkum fully self-sufficient in terms of energy and decarbonised by 2030. Ayesa is responsible for developing an IT platform that allows energy from various sources to be managed using AI.

New uses for quantum computing, blockchain and machine learning

Ayesa is also involved in projects based on disruptive technologies.

Through Ibermática, as part of the EU project COGNIPLANT (ongoing), it is developing a cognitive platform designed to enhance the performance and sustainability of the European process industry. The progress made to date is allowing for advanced digitalisation and smart management through monitoring tools and data analytics. This, combined with the disruptive use of the digital twin concept, will allow the operational performance of production plants to be significantly increased.

One of the technological challenges faced by the construction industry is the optimisation of its digital processes in a context involving multiple players. As such, the European project DigiChecks seeks to create a new digital framework that allows for the interoperability and communication between platforms in order to facilitate the management of building permits. To do this, the initiative, led by FCC, will draw on technology developed by international initiatives, such as Gaia-X and IDSA. Through Ibermática, Ayesa will mainly be involved in providing self-sovereign identity (SSI) services based on blockchain technology, and work on a framework to automate processes based on BPM and BRMS, in addition to an AI module.

Healthcare, for its part, is one of the sectors where AI is expected to have the greatest impact in coming years. However, it will first have to overcome certain obstacles, such as the need for coded textual data, data anonymization and synthetic data, as well as ensuring the quality of data and absence of bias. These techniques, combined with new ones which minimise the need for the exchange of data, such as federated AI, will help issues associated with making the most of electronic medical records be overcome through machine learning. As such, in this area, through Ibermática, Ayesa is working with Osakidetza and the Basque Department of Health on the project AISym4MED.

Amongst the strategic projects led by Ayesa through Ibermática, Q4Real, funded by the Basque Government through the Hazitek programme, also stands out. The explosion of quantum technology is set to revolutionise the way information is used, something which has led the group to head this pioneering project in the Basque Country, in which leading technology firms such as Multiverse and manufacturing giants such as Mercedes Benz are involved.

Specifically, the company is working in the area of quantum AI, focusing on the simulation and optimisation of problems using quantum computing and quantum-resilient cybersecurity, as well as methodologies such as CRISP-DM and QoPS, which will be necessary in coming years whilst traditional and quantum computing exist side by side.