Veolia and Alcom, a French environmental AI startup, have announced the creation of Ekydra, a strategic joint venture aimed at developing intelligent solutions for water utilities. The initiative positions Ekydra as a national leader in smart, sustainable, and resilient water management technologies.
In response to the climate crisis and growing demands from local communities, Ekydra will focus on three major challenges:
- Water conservation: Using Leak Tracker, an AI-powered mobile app already deployed in over 100 French municipalities, Ekydra enables early and accurate leak detection—potentially saving billions of liters of water annually.
- Carbon footprint reduction: By leveraging AI-driven energy optimization algorithms and 3D hydraulic modeling, the venture helps reduce energy use in water treatment and distribution, while supporting the design of more sustainable infrastructure.
- Ecosystem protection: Smart wastewater flow management helps anticipate and prevent overflows and pollution, particularly during extreme weather events like floods.
Veolia brings deep expertise in water and wastewater services, local infrastructure knowledge, and global R&D capabilities through its 14 innovation centers. Alcom contributes cutting-edge, patented AI algorithms tailored to public water services.
Together, the partners are building a scalable, ready-to-deploy solution for municipalities, industries, farmers, and utility operators. Ekydra's offerings will be gradually integrated into Veolia’s existing contracts and made available to public utilities seeking performance improvements.
The joint venture will also promote open innovation, collaborating with startups and universities in France and abroad to accelerate the development of sustainable water technologies.
