Beyond Lithium: Why the Next Innovation Race Is About Energy Ecosystems, Not Just Better Batteries
Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated headlines over the past few years. Advances in foundation models, increasingly powerful computing hardware, and rapid improvements in AI capabilities have fueled excitement about the future of technology.
Yet while much of the conversation about technology focuses on computation, a quieter transformation is taking place in parallel: energy storage is becoming one of the defining technologies of the coming decade.
Batteries are no longer viewed solely as components that power electronic devices. They are increasingly recognized as enabling technologies for everyday applications as diverse as wearable devices, robotics, medical implants, precision agriculture, and distributed sensing. As electronic devices become more intelligent, connected, and autonomous, the demands placed on their energy storage are becoming far more complex.
This realization became particularly evident during a recent visit to Switzerland, where a multidisciplinary delegation of NC State Social Innovation Fellows, led by the author, engaged with energy, materials, and AI researchers and entrepreneurs at ETH Zürich, battery experts at the Swiss Battery Technology Center (SBTC), and entrepreneurs and investors at START Summit in March 2026, one of Europe's largest entrepreneurship events.
Reliable Energy Is Becoming the Foundation of the Next Technology Revolution
While the delegation traveled to present and explore commercialization pathways for EnviraCell, a sustainable battery startup idea, the experience ultimately became an opportunity to observe how one of Europe's leading innovation ecosystems of research centers, funding agencies, and startups are approaching the future of batteries, and sustainable energy storage.
Throughout these discussions, batteries were rarely treated as an isolated field of electrochemistry. Instead, they were viewed as strategic infrastructure underpinning emerging technologies. Whether supporting AI-enabled wearables, medical implants, environmental sensors, or autonomous systems, the conversation consistently returned to the same question: how can we develop energy storage that is safer, more sustainable, and better matched to specific applications?
Related to energy storage, sustainability encompasses challenges such as reliance on critical raw materials, energy-intensive manufacturing, hazardous waste generation, and the environmental impacts of battery disposal at the end of life. Addressing these issues requires rethinking both the materials used and the way batteries are designed, manufactured, and managed throughout their lifecycle.
Rather than asking which battery chemistry will replace lithium-ion, a more compelling question emerged: does the future require a portfolio of complementary battery technologies? Electric vehicles, disposable IoT sensors, biomedical devices, and grid-scale storage each have fundamentally different requirements. Expecting a single chemistry to serve every application may be unrealistic. The next generation of batteries will likely be defined not by one universal solution, but by application-driven innovation.
Innovation Ecosystems Matter More Than Individual Technologies
One of the most striking observations from Switzerland was that innovation was rarely discussed as the product of a single breakthrough. Instead, successful technologies appeared to emerge from highly connected ecosystems where universities, startups, investors, manufacturers, regulators, and industry collaborated continuously.
Research remained the foundation, but it was never viewed as the final destination.
Throughout discussions, technical questions quickly evolved into conversations about manufacturability, customer needs, sustainability, standards, and deployment. Engineers spoke comfortably with entrepreneurs. Researchers engaged with investors. Industry leaders challenged scientific assumptions, while scientists questioned practical limitations.
Perhaps the greatest strength of these ecosystems was not the excellence of any single institution, but the ease with which expertise moved between disciplines.
This integrated approach may become increasingly important as emerging technologies become more complex. AI depends on computing infrastructure, computing depends on energy, energy depends on advanced materials, and advanced materials depend on resilient supply chains and sustainable manufacturing. Progress in one domain increasingly relies on progress in many others.
The lesson extends well beyond batteries. Innovation is becoming less about individual technologies and more about building environments where different forms of expertise can intersect to solve shared challenges.
Preparing the Next Generation of Energy Innovators
Universities have long excelled at training students to become exceptional scientists and engineers. The next challenge may be preparing them to understand the broader ecosystems in which their discoveries will ultimately exist.
Exposure to global innovation ecosystems offers something that cannot easily be replicated in a classroom. It provides context. It demonstrates how scientific discovery interacts with entrepreneurship, manufacturing, investment, regulation, and public policy. More importantly, it encourages students to think not only about what they are building, but why it matters and who it ultimately serves.
This perspective is particularly relevant as sustainability becomes inseparable from technological innovation. Clean energy is no longer simply an environmental objective. It increasingly influences economic competitiveness, resilient supply chains, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and long-term technological leadership. At the same time, the rapid growth of AI is increasing demand for efficient computing and reliable energy systems, reinforcing the need to think about these challenges together rather than independently.
Future researchers will therefore need more than technical expertise. They will need the ability to collaborate across disciplines, communicate with diverse stakeholders, and understand the broader implications of the technologies they develop.
From Switzerland to NC State: Our Take-Home Message
For the NC State Social Innovation Fellows, EnviraCell ultimately became much more than a startup; it became a platform for conversation while in Switzerland.
Discussions around EnviraCell rarely focused solely on battery chemistry. Researchers explored scientific challenges. Entrepreneurs questioned value creation. Investors discussed scalability. Industry leaders highlighted manufacturing realities, while sustainability experts emphasized lifecycle and environmental impact. The same idea was examined through multiple perspectives, each strengthening the conversation.
As one Social Innovation Fellow, Alice Ko, reflected,
"Lively and bright are two words I would use to describe what I was able to experience. This trip allowed me a chance to explore the entrepreneurial side of research. As a first-year engineering student, I know that this opportunity is rare, and it showed me that engineering is more than just research and data."
Perhaps that idea: “engineering is more than just research and data” was the delegation's most important takeaway.
The future will undoubtedly require breakthroughs in batteries, AI, and sustainable technologies. But equally important will be the innovation ecosystems, and the diverse expertise of the researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs within them, allow those breakthroughs to move beyond the laboratory and create meaningful societal impact.
In the end, the greatest innovation may not be a new battery chemistry or a more capable AI model. It may be the ability to bring researchers, entrepreneurs, industry, investors, and policymakers together around a shared vision for a more sustainable future.
Author Bio
Bhavya Jain is a PhD student in the Bandodkar Research Group at NC State University. His research lies at the intersection of wearable devices, sustainable energy storage, and agentic AI, with a focus on developing next-generation wearable technologies and non-toxic power sources. He believes that combining rigorous engineering with entrepreneurial thinking is essential for translating scientific discoveries into technologies with real-world impact.