How AI Is Powering the Next Wave of Hard Tech Innovation
Artificial intelligence has rapidly become a cornerstone of industrial transformation, not only in software-driven sectors but across the physical, science-driven world of hard tech. As detailed in Pangaea Ventures’ inaugural Hard Tech Report, AI is now a significant cross-cutting force in hard tech innovation. It accelerates discovery, optimizes manufacturing, and unlocks new business models in fields ranging from climate innovation to advanced health and computational infrastructure.
AI and Hard Tech: A Natural Convergence
Hard tech encompasses breakthroughs in advanced materials, chemistry, biology, and manufacturing, fields that have historically required deep scientific expertise and significant capital to commercialize. The rise of AI is changing this paradigm. Machine learning and data-driven automation are streamlining R&D, enabling predictive design, and making once-impossible feats of engineering and biology achievable at scale.
For investors, this convergence isn’t just a trend, it’s fast becoming a competitive imperative. AI-driven hard tech companies are delivering solutions that are more efficient, scalable, and resilient, addressing urgent challenges in climate, supply chains, and health outcomes.
Real-World Examples: AI in Action Across Hard Tech
AI is emerging as a foundational driver of innovation across the hard tech landscape, and is powering breakthroughs that simply weren’t possible before. Here are three standout hard tech companies that showcase how AI is being used as a core enabler, transforming everything from manufacturing and agriculture to life sciences.
Machina Labs
Machina Labs is transforming manufacturing with its AI-powered robotic sheet metal forming platform. By combining robotics with advanced machine learning, Machina’s smart factories can rapidly prototype and produce complex metal parts for aerospace, automotive, and defense clients, reducing lead times and costs while enabling superior design flexibility. Their system continuously learns and adapts, making high-mix, low-volume manufacturing commercially viable.
Kanvas Biosciences
Kanvas Biosciences exemplifies the intersection of AI and biology. The company’s spatial biology platform uses deep learning models for spectral identification and segmentation of microbes, dramatically accelerating the discovery and development of novel microbiome-based therapeutics. By integrating advanced AI into its analytical workflows, Kanvas will improve the mechanistic understanding of disease and increase the likelihood of clinical success for next-generation biologics.
Orbital Materials
Orbital Materials uses its proprietary AI models, LINUS and Orb, to rapidly design and test advanced materials for climate technologies like carbon capture, water treatment, and semiconductors. By combining AI-driven simulations with real-world lab work, Orbital accelerates the discovery and deployment of new materials, achieving breakthroughs faster and more accurately than traditional methods. Its open-source AI tools now power collaborations with industry leaders to scale sustainable solutions
Why It Matters for Investors
The integration of AI into hard tech is not just enhancing performance, it’s fundamentally redefining what’s possible. Companies that harness AI in their physical technologies are achieving faster innovation cycles, greater operational resilience, and stronger alignment with sustainability goals. For investors, these are the companies poised to lead, and disrupt, entire industries.
Dive Deeper
For a deeper dive into how AI is shaping the future of hard tech, download the Hard Tech Report. You’ll find sector-by-sector analysis, market drivers, and actionable insights for investors and industry leaders.
Register now for our upcoming webinar on June 25 to hear from Pangaea’s co-founders about their 25 years in hard tech investing, and what they predict for the next 25.