Strategic Elements to declare results of novel battery and neuromorphic memory technology

WA-based pooled development fund Strategic Elements (ASX: SOR) has published an update regarding its subsidiary Australian Advanced Materials’ ongoing development of its printable battery and neuromorphic memory technologies including meeting several milestones.

In a statement, Strategic said that as part of its collaboration with the University of New Sales Wales (UNSW), it had begun finalising the upscale of its battery ink technology to 1 litre, earlier this week.

With results “on track” to be made available next month, Strategic hopes to develop and commercialise the self-charging battery technology, which is able to generate electricity from humidity in the air or skin surface and self-charge within minutes.

The developers claim that no manual wired power will be required with the battery cells being created with a printable ink and therefore ideally suited for use in Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Strategic’s subsidiary is developing a new generation of battery cells that can rival the existing lithium-ion variety including several competitive advantages over lithium-based batteries that suffer from flexibility, dimension, weight and safety issues while needing a constant power supply to be recharged.

According to market research, the global battery market for IoT devices has grown from around US$8.7 billion in 2009 and is forecast to total US$15.9 billion by 2025.

Neuromorphic memory

Another leading line of development for Strategic’s pooled fund approach is printable neuromorphic memory.

Australian Advanced Materials has begun testing its nanocube memory prototype and is investigating its potential in printable “brain-inspired”, or neuromorphic computing.

The company’s nanocube memory structure and operation allows it to combine computing and memory in a single place, similarly to how biological neurons operate, with a series of significant synaptic functions set to be emulated as part of development.

According to Strategic, results remain on track for this technology and are expected to be available in December 2020 with further updates pending.

One potential application is leveraging the rapid increase in the amount of data being created and consumed across government, consumer and business sectors.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the amount of data created over the next three years will be more than the data created over the past 30 years. The prospect means that data storage is set to become a pivotal hurdle for the IoT revolution to pick up momentum.

Further acquisitions

Strategic has also declared it is “seeking further acquisitions” in Australian innovation under the Federal Government’s registration for Strategic as a pooled development fund with a mandate to back local innovation.

The registration means Strategic investors forego tax on capital gains upon selling their shares.