ArcelorMittal today announces that its XCarb® Innovation Fund is launching an accelerator programme, in collaboration with Northeastern University’s Energy and Environmental Materials Research Centre (E²MC), to fund and support the next wave of breakthrough ideas on decarbonisation emerging from China.

Applicants to the XCarb® China Accelerator Programme will need to be start-ups or early-stage companies based in China, with post-lab scale concepts for commercially scalable technologies that hold strong potential to decarbonise steelmaking.

The following domains have been chosen as priorities for this year’s Accelerator Programme:

  1. Disruption in steel manufacturing
  2. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage
  3. Energy storage (long-duration energy storage for industry)
  4. Waste-to-value (biomass pathways for steel, steel by-product valorisation, and waste heat recovery)

We acknowledge that there is not one method for achieving net-zero and will consider applications in other areas related to steel decarbonisation, including AI for steel optimisation, technologies for steel scrap quality improvement and disruptive hydrogen technologies.

As in the previous editions of the programme, the XCarb® China Accelerator Programme will guide finalists on their pitch to the XCarb® Innovation Fund Investment Committee, for an equity investment or a potential research collaboration. We aim to announce the winner in Q3 2025.

For further application details, please click here.

Launched in 2021, the XCarb® Innovation Fund invests in companies developing technologies that hold the potential to accelerate the steel industry’s transition to carbon neutral steelmaking. Its inaugural accelerator programme, launched globally in 2022, received an overwhelmingly positive response. Over 90 start-ups from five different continents submitted applications, with CHAR Technologies, which is developing a high temperature pyrolysis technology that transforms organic waste streams into valuable energy outputs, selected as the winner, securing a $5 million investment in the process.

In 2023, ArcelorMittal launched a dedicated XCarb® India Accelerator Programme targeting the country’s deep ecosystem of technology start-ups, in partnership with the  Indian Institute of Technology Madras (‘IIT Madras’). From over 50 applicants, UrjanovaC, AgroMorph Technosolutions and Susstains Engineering Solutions were selected as the winners, each receiving prize money of $50,000 aimed at developing their technologies and business models. This year, ArcelorMittal is launching its third XCarb® Accelerator Programme in China, in recognition of the country’s ability to scale clean technologies at an unprecedented pace.