ELIRE Group Launches ELIRE Labs to Accelerate Clean Tech Innovation

ELIRE Group, a global leader in infrastructure, mobility, and clean energy, has launched ELIRE Labs — a dedicated innovation division focused on advancing technology, expanding into strategic markets, and driving commercialization efforts.

ELIRE Labs will power the group’s mission to accelerate decarbonization through next-gen solutions across sectors such as aerospace, maritime, mobility, energy, and government.

The announcement builds on the success of the company’s flagship innovations, including:

• Smart city floating infrastructure – Transforming waterfront infrastructure for ports, river cities and coastal cities with world’s first solutions in line with 8 UN SDGs.
• eSTOL – electric short take off and landing aircraft – Accelerating the electrification of commercial light aircraft, world first from the production line.
• Global Music Vault: Safeguarding the world’s music with the world’s first zero energy, long-term infrastructure and data medium solution, an eco-friendly, long-term archival solution in Norway’s Arctic, inspired by the Global Seed Vault. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, the vault is a zero-emissions storage infrastructure system utilizing cutting-edge silica-based technology to archive master-quality music and protect it from digital obsolescence, natural disasters, and climate risks for over 1,000 years, without relying on energy-intensive servers.

ELIRE Labs’ unique offering combines cutting-edge research & development, engineering and infrastructure expertise, and strategic consultancy to develop breakthrough technologies tailored to industry needs. The division operates across three core pillars:

• Co-Creation & Intellectual Property Development: Collaborating with partners to design and develop proprietary innovations.
• Technology Enhancement & Integration: Redefining and improving existing technologies through advanced engineering and design.
• Strategic Market Development: Identifying and unlocking new business opportunities, ensuring market readiness, and scaling commercial solutions.

World-Class Expertise Driving Innovation

Spanning the UK, UAE, Europe, North America, Australia, and Southeast Asia, ELIRE Labs is powered by a world-class team with extensive experience in innovation and engineering from leading organizations such as Rolls-Royce Labs, Formula 1, Boeing, BAE Systems, NATS, AECOM, GE Power, GE Aviation, and QinetiQ. The team’s expertise spans naval architecture, floating infrastructure, subsea engineering, clean energy, aviation, and sustainable mobility, enabling them to tackle complex industry challenges with customized, risk-minimized, and scalable solutions.

‘Creative Solutioneering’ – Transformative Net Zero Solutions That Reshape Industries

ELIRE Labs pioneers a “creative solutioneering” approach—leveraging Innovation Incubators and Think Tanks to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and bring visionary sustainability solutions to life.

At the heart of ELIRE Labs is a philosophy of “solutioneering”—an innovation-first mindset combining R&D, prototyping, leveraging Innovation Incubators and Think Tanks to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration to solve critical sustainability challenges and bring visionary solutions to life..

Strategic Industry & Academic Partnerships

By working with global experts, ELIRE Labs ensures that its technologies are market-ready and scalable, from prototype to commercialized product, with minimal risk and accelerated timelines. With a track record of innovation partnerships including Hyundai HTWO, Hyundai Superna, and multiple future mobility start-ups, as well as collaborations with leading academic institutions and industry leaders Microsoft, MHTech, CEME, and Strathclyde University, ELIRE Labs’ partnerships drive collaborative research and development (CR&D), fast-tracking the commercialization of net-zero technologies.

Next-Gen Technologies Shaping the Future

The innovative lab integrates AI, digital twins, robotics, and automation into sustainable infrastructure and engineering solutions, reducing operational costs and enhancing infrastructure resilience. The division is also pioneering offshore and subsea robotics, renewable energy advancements, and modular infrastructure solutions to accelerate the energy transition and drive global decarbonization efforts.

Seasoned Operations, Systems and Technology Engineer, Patrick Lane-Nott at the helm.

At the helm of ELIRE Labs is Patrick Lane-Nott, a seasoned operations, systems, and technology engineer with over 28 years’ experience in project management, execution, and strategic delivery of cross-continental technical and data projects. As a Chartered Engineer, Patrick brings a wealth of knowledge from diverse sectors, including, automotive, construction, and heavy industry, encompassing both hardware and software domains, working with and for well-known brands such as Williams Grand Prix Engineering, Lotus F1 Team, Lamborghini, ABB and DaimlerChrysler.

Patrick’s illustrious career includes leading global roles working for MTS Systems Corporation where he was instrumental in designing, developing, marketing and selling a next-generation 6DOF automotive dynamic driving simulator in collaboration with McLaren Applied Technologies. His role at hyperTunnel saw him spearheading revolutionary and now patented tunnelling technologies, utilizing AI, digital twins and machine learning to enhance safety and efficiency in underground construction for Network Rail and in the process built the world’s first 3D printed tunnel using swarm robotics.

Patrick has also served as an innovation mentor and advisor to deep-tech start-ups and has participated in numerous accelerator programmes. He has been a judge for the New Civil Engineer Awards. A lifelong focus on contributing to strategic technology transfer between industries led to him contributing to a National Institute of Building Sciences positioning paper on ‘Digital Twins for the Built Environment’ for The White House and he has written thought leadership articles on digital twins for publications such as Planning, BIM & Construction Today and Construction Europe and been the subject of multiple innovation themed podcasts.

Patrick’s extensive experience in integrating advanced technologies across various industries positions him uniquely to lead ELIRE Labs in delivering innovative, sustainable solutions that address today’s pressing challenges.

Under Patrick’s leadership, ELIRE Labs will continue to incubate, develop, and deploy world-first sustainable technologies, bringing together breakthrough engineering and commercial innovation to shape the next generation of clean mobility, energy, and smart infrastructure.

Patrick Lane-Nott, Managing Director of ELIRE Labs, commented:

“At ELIRE Labs, we’re combining decades of hands-on engineering, systems thinking, and real-world delivery across infrastructure, clean energy, aerospace, and mobility to tackle the urgent need for scalable, sustainable technologies. Our team brings deep technical insight across robotics, digital twins, simulation, power systems, and advanced manufacturing—enabling us to approach problems with a level of rigour and creativity that sets us apart. This isn’t theoretical innovation; it’s grounded, fast-tracked, and built for impact. ELIRE Labs exists to help industry partners move faster, think bigger, and deliver solutions that genuinely shape a better future.”

Bringing further strength to ELIRE Labs is Tom White, appointed Non-Executive Director of Maritime & Place Innovation. With over 15 years of experience leading innovation programmes at Rolls-Royce, Lloyd’s Register, and the Connected Places Catapult, Tom has shaped collaborative programmes across hydrogen hubs, autonomous maritime systems, predictive digital twins, and smart port energy infrastructure.

Tom White commented, “What excites me about ELIRE Labs is the clarity of vision and pace of delivery. We’re not just talking about maritime innovation, we’re creating the enabling platforms and ecosystems for next-gen transport, energy and place-making. The opportunity to help redefine coastal and port infrastructure for a net-zero future is hugely compelling.”

ELIRE Labs operates as a self-sustaining incubator where creativity thrives, and complex problems are solved in both virtual and physical realms. Clients gain access to the diverse and specialized skills of the Lab’s team members, to enable the development of bespoke solutions tailored to individual client needs and industry demands.

Luke Jenkinson, Founder & Group CEO of ELIRE Group, commented: “The world urgently needs scalable, commercially viable net zero solutions. ELIRE Labs brings together unmatched cross-industry expertise, bridging infrastructure, mobility, and clean energy to deliver real impact. We’re not just responding to today’s challenges; we’re anticipating and shaping the future of sustainable technology.”

“Our experts are working across engineering, aviation, infrastructure, data storage, maritime design, smart cities, systems integration, ports, supply chains, power generation and power storage to develop new commercial technologies that push beyond what’s currently available. ELIRE Labs represents a bold step forward in defining the next era of fast-to-deploy sustainable solutions.”

As industries worldwide accelerate their decarbonisation efforts, ELIRE Labs is actively seeking new collaborations to drive impactful, scalable change.

ELIRE Labs is actively exploring future use cases, bringing emerging research to market and fast-tracking new sustainable solutions in modular infrastructure, aerospace, and clean energy. These innovations not only meet today’s market demands but anticipate the sustainability challenges of tomorrow.

ELIRE Labs invites companies, researchers, and industry leaders to collaborate on breakthrough innovations in mobility, infrastructure, and clean energy.