New AI software set to accelerate delivery of vital net-zero infrastructure

Closing the gap between net-zero ambition and delivery

Planning major net-zero infrastructure is often slow and high-risk. Costly redesigns and frequent delays can prevent essential networks being produced fast enough to achieve our net-zero ambitions.

To close this gap, our Grantham Scholars, Joseph Hammond and Thomas Cowley, founded AENi, along with Professor Solomon Brown, to develop advanced infrastructure planning and design technology.

“There’s a huge gap between net-zero ambition and the practical reality of delivering major networks—hydrogen, CO₂, electricity—fast, affordably, and with fewer surprises,” explains Hammond. “Our mission is to help the teams who shape critical infrastructure de-risk decisions and transition to clean energy faster, using software that combines geospatial modeling, scenario analysis, and engineering-grounded simulation.”

How RunPilot is accelerating infrastructure planning

The team at AENi recently launched its RunPilot software—a live, collaborative planning platform that uses spatial data and constraints to generate and compare alternative infrastructure designs and network layouts faster and more efficiently. Its AI search and optimization techniques allow planners to explore large design spaces quickly and quantify technical, economic, environmental and social trade-offs across different scenarios, helping cut months off the planning process.

“Currently, teams are forced to make billion-pound, long-lived decisions using fragmented tools—routing in one place, cost/performance elsewhere, risk and consenting in another—and it’s difficult to understand the trade-offs or avoid stranded/underused assets,” says Hammond. “RunPilot brings those pieces together so teams can explore more options, earlier, with clearer evidence behind the decisions.”

“The output is a set of strong candidate designs, plus the evidence: how each performs across different futures, and where potential delivery or consenting risks may sit. This allows teams to make decisions with more confidence and less rework.”

From the research lab to real-world deployment

RunPilot developed out of research and real planning problems tackled at the University of Sheffield. The seed fund was used to engage with the sector, develop early branding, and push forward product development to translate the work from research into something usable. The University of Sheffield also played a key role in establishing the spin-out—providing commercialization support and practical guidance to allow the team to move from academic innovation to real-world deployment.

The future impact of RunPilot

This is an exciting time for the AENi team, as they recently launched the official RunPilot website and are looking to incorporate in March 2026. As for the future, Hammond hopes RunPilot will become a key tool in the world’s transition to net-zero.

“Net-zero isn’t only a technology challenge—it’s a delivery challenge,” says Hammond. “Our near-term hope is to get RunPilot into the hands of the organizations shaping net-zero infrastructure—network operators, consultancies, government teams, and regional planning bodies—so it becomes a practical decision-support tool that compresses the decision loop that slows these projects down.

“In practice, that means fewer late-stage redesigns, faster progression from concept to buildable plans, and quicker deployment of the assets that unlock large emissions reductions in heavy industry.”