Cutting Energy Costs by 60%: The Future of Machinery with Tinental @ CES 2026

Help support our coverage with a free account on Privacy, the service that keeps you protected when shopping online. Get $5 to try it now using promo code QZZ2J. Hello, I'm Don Bain. Nice to meet you, Alan. Nice to meet you. What are you bringing to show us? Now, what we're building is an AI tool. Okay. So that is a combination between software and hardware, so we're talking deep tech. Okay. What we do is we improve the energy efficiency for fluid mechanic machinery. So that's a fancy word for saying everything that moves, liquid or air, pumps, fans, compressors, those kinds of things. Okay. And people think, why do I care? Right. It's actually a very big problem because 46% of all energy in the world is consumed by these machines. So think about all processes in factories, heating a building, cooling a building, that's fluid mechanics. And our technology is, it's a retrofit on existing machinery where we can basically get up to 60% less energy with the exact same production output as before. That's huge. That is huge. 60%? Exactly. Because what we target is actually not the efficiency of the machine itself. It's the fact that it's oversized. Right. These machines are called legacy machinery because they last more than 25 years. So when you do install them, you have to think about future growth, peaks in the production cycle, right? Difference between summer. Summer and spring, for instance, in buildings. So they're built for the maximum capacity, but their average is like 30% to 50% lower. But you keep paying the same energy as you would as peak capacity. And that's what we take away. We take away all that energy waste. So you only spend the energy for the actual production need that you have. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. And it sounds easy. It's not that easy. Oh, believe me. I know. I can only imagine. This is the device? This is the device. One of the devices. Yeah. No, this is actually the device. Let's put it here so people can see it. So like you can see, it's very, very small. So, you know, it has the typical charging port, power port, USB-C. We have here the magical internet connector, Ethernet. And here we look like we have what's called, oh, this is a power connector. This is actually what we connect it to. So this is a very clever device because it's connected directly to the VFD, which is the speed control of the machinery. Right. So that means we don't need any external. We don't need any external energy. We don't need any power source. We get everything we need directly from the machinery itself. And sensor of some sort, readout? No, I mean, we don't need sensors to work. It all works on the loss of fluid dynamic. That is where our AI comes into play. Okay. Here's my question. How on earth did you get into this? Well, I mean, both my co-founder and I came from a background of industrial maintenance. So you were one of the founders of the company. Yes, we are two founders. What's your background? Very boring. I don't think so. There's no way it could be boring and make this. No, no, no. I mean, you know, the real genius of the company is actually my co-founder, who has a master in AI and machine learning and stuff like that. I'm more on execution. So before the company I was in, before I was a CFO, you know, I was more into finance, business development. So I'm the boring part of the company. I don't even know. Here's the glue that makes everything work. I mean, for a startup, it is important to have your finances in control, for sure. Yeah. For sure. And also, I can speak the same languages as the companies that we work with. I know their pain points from a financial standpoint. Right. And that is very important in communication. A very astute lady here. I could tell you that right now. Thank you so much. Good for you. Yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of success in 2025. Who uses this? Can you tell us, like, what companies would use this that we may be aware of? Yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of success. We are from Europe, but we work with very big companies like Veolia, which is the biggest water utility company in the world. Engie is one of the energy companies in the world, the biggest in the world. We also work for Stellantis, where in America you would know them as Chrysler and Jeep. So the automotive sector. We work for Prichman. It's the biggest capable company. So we work for a lot of very big companies. But what I also want to say is that we can do the same thing for buildings. So, for instance, this year, last year, 2025, we won innovation of the year in Europe for the augmentation of a hospital. No kidding. So you can imagine like school buildings, hospitals, airports. You can imagine if I can lower their energy bill by 50, 60% with the exact same temperature all over the building. And that's what we did for that hospital. How do you do that? How does it happen? I mean, basically to give a very, very easy example. Yeah. Broad stroke. Yeah. Because heating and cooling is a pumping system that does, let's say, a thousand gallons of water moved a minute. So you will have energy for pumping those thousand gallons of water. But when you leave less heat or less cooling, then you have the valves closing the circuit just as you do in your shower head, right, to regulate the flow. And that means that you will get less flow. But the pumps in the pumping stations will be pumping at the same speed. So you will have the exact same consumption of energy. So you will have the exact same energy for pumping half that liquid. And that's what we do. We just simply slow down the machine. So he will only irrigate, let's say, 500 gallons, if that's what you need. So that's the artificial intelligence part of this, that it understands what to keep on and shut off, kind of, sort of. I know it's so interwound that- Yeah. I mean, what we did was we created this five-dimensional performance twin, which is a very fancy word to say that we understand based on only the electrical consumption and the speed of the machine. And that's exactly what that machine is doing. So that means we don't need any sensors. We don't need to change any machinery. It is literally a plug and play into existing machinery. We don't have any machine learning. It's a no-brainer. I mean, this is a no-brainer. Why wouldn't you do this? And I haven't even told you the best part yet. I'm pretty impressed. It's a very, very clever device. I mean, since we wanted this to be a technology that was also solved problems for a lot of people, but we also wanted it to be available to everybody. So not just for the rich companies or the rich countries. We really want this technology to be available to everybody. And that's why we decided to give this device free of cost. So you have no capex, you have no investments to make. We will do everything for free and you will only give us a small percentage of the actual savings achieved. So if we don't save you any money, you don't pay us anything. And we only take a minority part of the savings. And that makes sense. It makes it available to everybody. Like you can just literally install it. So I can put this in my home? Our target as a startup right now is we're not going for that small because it's not economically viable. I get it. Who are you going for? I'm going for like apartment buildings. So big buildings. Okay. You would need like 20, 30. That makes a lot of sense. Exactly. Because since you don't pay me anything, I need you to consume enough energy for me to make it worthwhile, right? So for instance, like I said, schools, hospitals. Wow. Airports. Office buildings. That is an insane concept. Exactly. It really is. You can imagine places like New York with all skyscrapers, right? It's unlimited. You have an unlimited audience to sell this to. Unlimited. I mean, that's what we think. And plus, it's proven now. We've had it. We have like tens of installations of it. How are you going to make the apartment complex in New York become aware of this? Going on Postcat for you and you're going to broadcast it. Well, you have international exposure here for sure. Exactly. No, we just started up our company in January, actually, here in the United States. So we wanted to replicate the success we've had in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia. We want to have the same success here in the United States. Should be a piece of cake. So it's all about creating awareness. Where are you based out of? So in Europe, we're based out of Italy, and here we're going to be based out of California. Because they have the highest energy bills. California is a state unto itself. Exactly. Exactly. But it's, again, it's, you know, the higher the pain point, the more hunger there is. You're not going to find a higher pain point in California, I don't think. Yeah. But everybody, like I say, it's a universal instrument that anybody can use because we can retrofit any pump, any size, any use. It doesn't matter. So have you lived in Italy to help create this? Oh, yeah, yeah. I live right now also in Italy, yeah. Where? Modena. Modena. So Modena, nobody knows where it is, but it's where the Ferraris made. Anza was born in Sicily. She knows. Okay. She knows. Everybody knows Modena for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani, all the fancy race cars. Yeah. They're made in Modena. Okay. That's great. I am super impressed with this. I mean, I'm like, wow, what an incredible concept, but to execute it. Yeah. I can't imagine. I mean, when we started, nobody believed us. Everybody said it. It's pretty complex. I mean, all the things that you're dealing with, and it's coming down to this. Yeah. Wow. I mean, the real challenge was that you have to make it seamless, right? You have to make it like plug and play in the ... Sure. ... and that was the hard part, to make it so simple that now people go, oh, if it's so simple, why haven't anybody do it before? But that's the trick about ... It's not that simple. Exactly. That is exactly true. Well, I commend you on this, and I wish you the best of luck. I wish you luck with it, but I don't think you're going to need any luck. This speaks for itself, and good for you for coming up with the concept of this and executing on it. It is not an easy thing to do. No. No. It was not. What an accomplishment. Thank you so much, sir. I interview tons ... I can't ... I don't even know how many people, a lot, but every now and then, like yourself, I find someone that's just brilliant with these things, and that's what keeps the world going, quite frankly. Yeah. I mean, I think what I always say is that we're all afraid of AI, we're all afraid of the bad things that AI can do. I have this conversation with my audience almost every day. Exactly. I think it's very important also to tell people that AI can be done for good. This one, which is a universal free instrument that you can actually use, and it will give you a better life, because you can do that as well with AI. Am I correct in assuming that this would not function without AI? That would not function without AI. We take the readings three times every second, and for each fluid dynamic machinery, the combinations of flow and head, whatever, is millions, and he can calculate it three times a second. See, folks, this is why I keep saying that AI is very dangerous, and it's also ... you're not going to be able to live without it. This clearly brings to point, to my mind, that this is a great example of this won't exist without AI. Look at that. Look at the amount of energy. Look at the amount of energy that it's saving and also enhancing people's lives and pocketbooks and everything else, and you've got to be glad that we're in an age where AI is starting to come into its own. It's terrific, and these are the devices that prove that theory, so we'll talk about this more later on, but wow, good for you. Thank you so much for coming on board. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it a lot. I'm blown away by that. What a cool idea. Thank you very much. And that you executed it, that you actually did it. Yeah. We're very proud of that. We're proud of it also because we executed it in bootstrapping. I would be ... I'm proud of you, and I don't even know you. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming on. Nice to meet you. My pleasure. My pleasure, really. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, just thank you. Thank you for coming on board. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me on board. You're very welcome. That was amazing. I'll see you next time on studied space. James, thanks for being here and a special thanks to you as well. Bye. See you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Production, copyright 2026.