• The IOTA Foundation has launched the I3-Lab at Imperial College London with a £1 million donation, additional funding from Imperial College, and grants from UK Research and Innovation.
• The lab, part of the iCUBE at Imperial College, will further focus on advancing the circular economy through pioneering sustainability research and innovative digital tools.

Today, the IOTA Foundation announced the launch of the I3-Lab at Imperial College London, a cutting-edge research facility dedicated to advancing the circular economy. This initiative is possible due to a £1 million donation from the IOTA Foundation, supplemented by additional funding from Imperial College and grants from UK Research and Innovation and the European Union.

The I3-Lab, situated at iCUBE, will serve as a central hub for pioneering sustainability research, officially commencing operations on July 3rd. Interestingly, this development also comes soon after IOTA announced $2.75 million in grants to DeFi, NFT, and SocialFi projects, per the CNF update.

The Imperial IOTA Infrastructure Lab (I3-Lab) aims to develop and utilize digital tools that enhance practices within the circular economy. Traditionally, economic growth has been tied to resource consumption, leading to unsustainable outcomes.

Moreover, the circular economy seeks to break this link by promoting sustainability through strategies like reuse and recycling. Achieving this transition necessitates innovative production methods, technologies, and areas of focus crucial to the IOTA Foundation’s mission.

Already, the IOTA Foundation’s distributed ledger technology supports various projects fostering new economic models, including the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) and Digital Product Passports, per the Crypto News Flash report.

About I3-Lab, IPTA, and Imperial

A unique feature of the I3-Lab is its focus on developing technologies that support new ownership models and business models based on servitization. These models also promote sharing and on-demand access to goods, services, and materials, moving away from conventional sole ownership. The I3-Lab aims to decouple economic growth from resource consumption by fostering circular economy models.

The I3-Lab has already made significant progress, securing additional grants and funding for several key projects:

• Autofair: A Horizon Europe project focusing on fair AI algorithms.
• iCircular3: A project studying circularity in robotics, automobiles, and outdoor tools.
• CoDiet: A research initiative to combat diet-related diseases through diet-monitoring technology and personalized nutrition.

The lab has hired five PhD students and several senior researchers, aiming for a total team of about 25 people. The Foundation’s Applied Research Team, led by Dr. William Sanders, IOTA’s Director of Applied Research and a visiting researcher at the Lab, will further collaborate with the projects involved with the I3-Lab. This initiative marks the latest development in the ongoing relationship between the IOTA Foundation and Imperial College.

IOTA has previously funded grant work for Imperial’s Professor Robert Shorten, with Dr. Pietro Ferraro, who is now part of the IOTA team, contributing to developing the IOTA Congestion Control algorithm and co-authoring several publications on IOTA.

Furthermore, the IOTA 2.0 system is also thriving with a new internal project under its belt, reported Crypto News Flash. Amid the broader market correction, the IOTA price crashed by 6.97%, falling all the way to $0.1548.