How ECOPEACE uses autonomous robots and data to monitor and maintain urban water bodies.
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:27 PM
A school of fish swimming among debris and waste. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
South Korea–based water technology company ECOPEACE is working on a practical challenge many cities face today: keeping urban water bodies clean as pollution and algae growth become more frequent. Rather than relying on periodic cleanup drives, the company focuses on systems that can monitor and manage water conditions on an ongoing basis.
At the core of ECOPEACE’s work are autonomous water-cleanup robots known as ECOBOT. These machines operate directly on lakes, reservoirs and rivers, removing algae and surface waste while also collecting information about water quality. The idea is to combine cleaning with constant observation so changes in water conditions do not go unnoticed.
Alongside the robots, ECOPEACE uses a filtration and treatment system designed to process polluted water continuously. This system filters out contaminants using fine metal filters and treats the water using electrical processes. It also cleans itself automatically, which allows it to run for long periods without frequent manual maintenance.
The role of AI in this setup is largely about decision-making rather than direct control. Sensors placed across the water body collect data such as pollution levels and water quality indicators. The software then analyses this data to spot early signs of issues like algae growth. Based on these patterns, the system adjusts how the robots and filtration units operate, such as changing treatment intensity or water flow. In simple terms, the technology helps the system respond sooner instead of waiting for visible problems to appear.
ECOPEACE has already deployed these systems across several reservoirs, rivers and urban waterways in South Korea. Those projects have helped refine how the robots, sensors and software work together in real environments rather than controlled test sites.
Building on that experience, the company has begun expanding beyond Korea. It is currently running pilot and proof-of-concept projects in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. These deployments are testing how the technology performs in dense urban settings where waterways are closely linked to public health, infrastructure and daily city life.
Both regions have invested heavily in smart city initiatives and water management, making them suitable test beds for automated monitoring and cleanup systems. The pilots focus on algae control, surface cleaning and real-time tracking of water quality rather than large-scale rollout.
As cities continue to grow and climate-related pressures on water systems increase, managing waterways is becoming less about occasional intervention and more about continuous oversight. ECOPEACE’s approach reflects that shift by using automation and data to address problems early and reduce the need for reactive cleanup later.
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Can SPhotonix’s optical memory technology protect data better than today’s storage?
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:32 PM
SPhotonix's 5D Memory Crystals™. PHOTO: SPHOTONIX
SPhotonix, a young deep-tech startup, is working on something unexpected for the data storage world: tiny, glass-like crystals that can hold enormous amounts of information for extremely long periods of time. The company works where light and data meet, using photonics—the science of shaping and guiding light—to build optical components and explore a new form of memory called “5D optical storage”.
It’s based on research that began more than twenty years ago, when Professor Peter Kazansky showed that a small crystal could preserve data—from the human genome to the entire Wikipedia—essentially forever.
Their new US$4.5 million pre-seed round, led by Creator Fund and XTX Ventures, is meant to turn that science into real products. And the timing aligns with a growing problem: the world is generating far more digital data than current storage systems can handle. Most of it isn’t needed every day, but it can’t be thrown away either. This long-term, rarely accessed cold data is piling up faster than existing storage infrastructure can manage and maintaining giant warehouses of servers just to keep it all alive is becoming expensive and environmentally unsustainable.
This is the problem SPhotonix is stepping in to solve. They want to store huge amounts of information in a stable format that doesn’t degrade, doesn’t need electricity to preserve data and doesn’t require constant swapping of hardware. Instead of racks of spinning drives, the idea is a durable optical crystal storage system that could last for generations.
The company’s underlying technology—called FemtoEtch™—uses ultrafast lasers to engrave microscopic patterns inside fused silica. These precisely etched structures can function as high-performance optical components for fields like aerospace, microscopy and semiconductor manufacturing. But the same ultra-controlled process can also encode information in five dimensions within the crystal, transforming the material into a compact, long-lasting archive capable of holding massive amounts of information in a very small footprint.
The new funding allows SPhotonix to expand its engineering team, grow its R&D facility in Switzerland and prepare the technology for real-world deployment. Investors say the opportunity is significant: global data generation has more than doubled in recent years and traditional storage systems—drives, disks, tapes—weren’t designed for the scale or longevity modern data demands.
While the company has been gaining attention in research circles (and even made an appearance in the latest Mission Impossible film), its next step is all about practical adoption. If the technology reaches commercial viability, it could offer an alternative to the energy-hungry, short-lived storage hardware that underpins much of today’s digital infrastructure.
As digital information continues to multiply, preserving it safely and sustainably is becoming one of the biggest challenges in modern computing. SPhotonix’s work points toward a future where long-lasting, low-maintenance optical data storage becomes a practical alternative to today’s fragile systems. It offers a more resilient way to preserve knowledge for the decades ahead.