We asked Activate Managing Partners David Lincoln, Raj Atluru, and Anup Jacob, and Partners Jon Guerster, Eric Meyers, and Paul Jordan for their predictions of what 2025 will hold in everything from technology, policy, and business model innovation to March Madness. Here’s what they said:
How might the change in US federal administrations influence the future of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its climate incentives, and what changes could we expect in funding or policy priorities for clean energy technologies?
Raj Atluru: Trump will cut some programs, largely leave most in place, and declare victory.
David Lincoln: Agreed. Bi-partisan support for US manufacturing will mitigate the cut-backs.
Anup Jacob: The repeal of IRA, in whole or part, is a top Republican priority for 2025. Most likely on the chopping block are the Loan Program Office and various tax credits which will get eliminated or modified (Advanced Manfacturing; EV Tax Credits, Production Tax Credit). The 30% ITC will remain intact as it has bi-partisan support.
What role do you foresee for AI in accelerating the shift toward more sustainable, regenerative systems across industries and societies in the next 3 to 5 years?
Paul Jordan: I think AI as a force for accelerating sustainability is ‘happy speak.’ The principal impact of AI on climate will be to increase energy demand. There will likely be some interesting breakthroughs in materials discovery or grid system optimization that derive from AI. But the impacts of these will pale in comparison to rising energy demand to power compute.
Anup: If someone asked me at a dinner party where to invest over the next 5 years, I would say invest in anything around AI & DataCenters, which is the unassailable macro permeating every facet of our economy. This technology requires 5-10x more power than traditional chips and supplying consistent & clean power is a great derivative play on this macro shift.
Eric Meyer: AI applications have largely been confined to the virtual world. Think enterprise use-cases around large language models. The massive opportunity ahead of us is harnessing the power of AI to influence the physical world, driving more sustainability.
Jon Guerster: Exciting? Efficiencies coming from autonomous mobility, humanoid robots, and health science AI. Scary? Agentic AI warfare and deepfakes. Ukraine/Middle East battlegrounds are innovating real time, but agentic tech will eventually bring a next level of sophistication. For deepfakes, we’re going to need third-party digital authentication providers to help us maintain digital trust in a world where we regularly interact with AI-generated people, companies, content, and images.
Are there new business models emerging that you think will drive the adoption of climate technologies in the next few years?
David: My biggest prediction for the year is that we are going to see a major pullback of corporate commitments to sustainability (timelines for meeting specified goals will be pushed back significantly). It has started already and it is going to accelerate.
Paul: Behind-the-meter nuclear. It is likely still 10+ years before these technologies (and really supply chains) can prove profitable for a broader set of industrial use cases. But they will get there, and the impact will be immense for climate.
Anup: The contrarian move here is to look at Climate Adaptation (vs. climate mitigation) business models. Examples of adaptation include climate insurance, grid hardening, and weather intelligence.
Are there any unexpected technologies or innovations that you think will disrupt the climate tech sector in the next 3 to 5 years?
Raj: Small Modular Reactors finally get commercialized.
Eric: Transmission transmission transmission. The energy transition can’t happen without a massive buildout of high voltage transmission lines. There will be bipartisan support to improve interconnection challenges.
Anup: No. There are no disruptions coming in 3-5 years. China will continue to ramp down the cost of solar & wind globally (along with better EVs coming to market). The US adoption will remain steady with consistent growth but nothing disruptive.
Which popular climate-related technology will have the best year making substantive progress? The worst year?
Raj: For sure storage will have a very big year. Carbon capture will have a tough one.
David: Hydrogen production technologies are also going to be under duress (so worst year); But for best year:
Data center efficiency and the move to solid state will make significant progress.
The quality and value of weather forecasting—and its incorporation into business processes—is going to make a major leap ahead in 2025.
Anup: Autonomous vehicles who use AI to make quicker, better decisions.
Jon: NVIDIA/Blackwell will single-handedly drive a shift from air cooling to liquid cooling in data centers.
What school will win March Madness 2025? Which school will rank higher in the end-of-season poll—Kansas, Duke or UConn?
Paul: Duke and Duke (Go Duke!)
Raj: Calling it now—UConn gets the Threepeat.
David: Raj is probably right (certainly of those three…) but the tournament is crazy. Can I vote for a dark horse? 😉
We asked Activate Managing Partners David Lincoln, Raj Atluru, and Anup Jacob, and Partners Jon Guerster, Eric Meyers, and Paul Jordan for their predictions of what 2025 will hold in everything from technology, policy, and business model innovation to March Madness. Here’s what they said: