Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) pursues big ideas to solve the most important security challenges facing the U.S. and the world. In that pursuit, scientific breakthroughs with market potential are discovered, protected and licensed to (or collaborated on) with industry partners through a process called technology transfer.
LLNL's Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO) facilitates this for the Laboratory across 10 portfolios of technology including software; advanced manufacturing; advanced computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum; energy and environment; space; national security and defense; life sciences and biotechnology; chemicals and materials; lasers and optics; and instruments, sensors and electronics (ISE).
A key part of enabling the commercialization of LLNL technology for industry use is empowering entrepreneurship. At times, this leads to startup companies founded by Laboratory researchers, but often it looks more like empowering LLNL staff with an entrepreneurial mindset while approaching their mission-based work.
This is why LLNL was one of the first national laboratories to join the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy I-Corps (EIC) program as a pilot nearly a decade ago. Since then, 12 LLNL teams have participated in EIC Training Cohorts. A key initiative of the DOE's Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), EIC each year invites teams of researchers - consisting of a principal investigator, entrepreneurial lead and industry mentor - to participate in an immersive, two-month training program. Researchers then return to their respective labs with a framework for industry engagement designed to guide future research and inform a culture of market awareness within DOE national labs.
Celebrating 10 years of Energy I-Corps
In September 2025, LLNL celebrated its teams from EIC Cohort 20 (EIC Spring '25) in an event that brought together 40 attendees including program alumni, regional ecosystem partners, industry professionals and Laboratory leadership. The event was designed to empower LLNL researchers with fresh, entrepreneurial perspectives on their work by facilitating networking, a lively panel discussion and presentations on three cutting-edge projects from Cohort 20.
- IgniteAM (Xiaoxing Xia, Eric Duoss, Raspberry Simpson): Showcased advancements in 3D printing for the next generation of laser fusion targets - a crucial step toward making fusion energy commercially viable.
- AMPERE (Diego I. Oyarzun, Erika P. Ramos): Focused on advanced manufacturing for printed electrochemical energy - specifically 3D-printed copper current collectors that promise longer battery life and better energy performance.
- xGridDS (Indra Chakraborty, Jack Davis): Demonstrated their machine learning platform for predicting and diagnosing faults in the electric grid - aiming to increase grid reliability and reduce maintenance costs.
Event attendees learned how customer discovery and understanding market pathways can accelerate the transition from mission-based research to real-world solutions with impact - and how this can help guide the direction of their own research. IPO's Hannah Farquar moderated the panel discussion where EIC alumni discussed opportunities for commercializing LLNL-based technologies and shared their lessons learned. Panelists also highlighted the important role that public-private partnerships play in scaling innovations. The event served as an opportunity to forge new connections between LLNL research teams, the local innovation ecosystem and business community.
Key takeaways from the presentations included the catalytic role that EIC has played in transforming scientific breakthroughs into impactful market solutions, and showcased how LLNL researchers are at the forefront of innovation in fusion energy, advanced battery technology and grid security.
Energy I-Corps at a glance
On the program side, EIC is an intensive, curriculum-based path for researchers to learn how to create and refine a business model canvas for their Lab-developed technology by: defining the technology's value proposition; conducting customer discovery, including at least 75 stakeholder interviews; and exploring viable market pathways for their technologies.
In this way, by developing a culture of market awareness among researchers, EIC is focused on ensuring the DOE's investment in national labs also maintains and strengthens long-term U.S. national security and economic competitiveness through its tech transfer offices. Benefits of proposing research projects for EIC include validating a technology's potential for market impact, building and leveraging ecosystem networks to advance technology commercialization and deployment, learning skills to support continued funding efforts for technology maturation and more.
The next Spring EIC program runs from March to May 2026, for which LLNL submitted six Topic 2 and three Topic 3 applications for consideration. Technology areas featured in this year's applications include high-power semiconductor switches; energy efficiency, data center cooling and waste heat management; optics and electronics; filtration and rare earth element separation; environment management, advanced manufacturing and materials, water technologies; and cybersecurity. For context, EIC Topic 2 is funding for participation in the cohort program described above. Topic 3 offers funding to teams that have successfully completed Topic 2, helping them to mature LLNL technologies to their next stage of commercialization.
