fbpx

Sustainable Construction Materials meet AI – Top Data Science and Betolar co-creation

April 01, 2020 | Blog, Case Studies, News

Scientific Director Maria Korppi strongly believes that the construction industry will experience a major shift towards the usage of more sustainable materials in the near future. While new solutions are being developed, the efficient use of existing materials is essential in order to protect the virgin natural resources and to avoid landfilling of waste.

Technologies that turn waste streams to value and simultaneously enable lower carbon footprint exist already today as Betolar has shown. “Our team has the know-how to turn different by-products from the energy, mining, steel and forestry industry into low carbon, geopolymer-based construction materials. What makes us even more unique is that we use advanced analytics to maintain high-quality control of our materials.”, Maria states.

Betolar and Top Data Science cooperation started in 2019. They had been closely following the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology development and how it is applied to different industries. To assess how Machine Learning (ML) solutions could help them to build more automated  R&D processes, they engaged with Top Data Science. After the initial meetings there seemed to be a good fit of Betolar’s business needs and Top Data Science competences both in AI / ML and cloud-based software development.

With Betolar’s solutions, the end products can be made from up to 90% of side streams. Therefore, there is no need to mine e.g. limestone and gravel that is necessary in traditional, OPC-based concrete. This makes the materials affordable. Our geopolymer manufacturing process is designed such that it can take place near the source of the by-product. In this way, significant logistic cost savings are obtained as well.”, Maria Korppi explains.

Betolar’s solutions are easily customizable for different needs, depending on the raw material and the application area of the end product. To make this process more effective, and at the same time secure high-quality end-products, Top Data Science has developed a cloud-based solution for Betolar. Solution enables utilization of state-of-the-art ML algorithms and mathematical optimization methods in Betolar’s business development 


It has been a great pleasure to work together with the Betolar team in their strategic digitalization and AI projects. The company itself is very innovative and their core inventions are based on long-term work from the founder Juha Leppänen. Furthermore, circular economy and Betolar’s idea of turning industrial waste streams into eco-friendly construction materials is intriguing and we wanted to help Betolar to achieve their goals with our AI and software development expertise”, comments Timo Heikkinen, former CEO of Top Data Science.

The collaboration has been a great example of the co-creation model that Top Data Science has established to effectively capture customers’ domain knowledge and business needs as a basis for AI solution development. The process is very engaging and interactive. Also with Betolar the collaboration started by describing and solving the core business needs, and continued then to build a production level solution that combines AI / ML technologies with intuitive cloud-based software application.

Betolar offers a wide range of unique construction solutions from ground engineering and mining to outdoor landscaping and infrastructure needs. For industrial by-product and waste producers geopolymer solutions are a profitable way to turn  raw materials such as ashes (energy), bio ashes and green liquor dregs (paper / pulp) and slag (steel industry) into a valuable raw material. By utilizing an advanced and specialized AI solution Betolar can help these industries to better reach their environmental, economical and social objectives.

Maria has been very satisfied with the collaboration that has generated great results supporting Betolar’s core business: “Top Data Science showed professionalism and great enthusiasm while developing AI-tools into an integral part of our R&D operations. Highly recommend them for tackling scientific and research related problems!”, Maria concludes. 


About Betolar:

Betolar’s solution turns different side streams from the energy, mining, steel and forestry industry into low carbon, cement-free construction materials. These materials perform the same as concrete in terms of qualities such as strength but leave a carbon footprint that is up to 90 per cent smaller. Betolar also enables a way to utilize the rapidly growing waste sites and accelerates the transition towards sustainable construction and a circular economy.

www.betolar.com

Advantages of combining different models

Advantages of combining different models

In Top Data Science AI Tech Blog Series Kai Lehtinen, COO, is discussing with Juho Piironen, Lead Data Scientist, PhD, on the power and benefits of combining different machine learning models in a modular manner to solve various customer use cases. Using a modular...

What you may love to read