Our innovation approach

We connect to innovation ecosystems for sustainable growth

Since its beginning, Air Liquide has made innovation the driving force of its strategy. “Innovation that focuses on major societal trends that represent our future markets: the energy transition, the evolution of healthcare, and the development of deep tech. Air Liquide's teams rely on internal and external innovation ecosystems to develop differentiating solutions to meet the challenges of its customers and patients, and to open up new markets, while helping to build a sustainable future.

€304 M of innovation expenses in 2021

400+ partnerships

with customers, academic partners and start-ups worldwide

4,500 employees contributing to innovation every day

Innovation for the energy transition

Our diversity of technologies and solutions in energy transition and environmental protection, reinforced by digital technologies and a structured open ecosystem, enables our innovation teams to contribute to the Group’s sustainable growth and achieve our objective of carbon neutrality by 2050.

In 2020, Air Liquide devoted 100 million euros of innovation spending to the energy transition, particularly for the development of low-carbon hydrogen and biomethane.

About €8 billion will be invested by 2035 in the low-carbon hydrogen value chain.

Innovation in healthcare

Air Liquide is one of the world leaders in the constantly evolving healthcare sector. It is committed, alongside patients, medical professionals and hospitals, to contributing to making the healthcare system more efficient, particularly through digital technology. Air Liquide, a pioneer in remote medical monitoring, is deploying digital solutions to support patients suffering from chronic diseases from their homes. These solutions, which are based on the analysis of data from connected equipment and on individualized support provided by nurses, improve the therapeutic follow-up of patients and contribute to improving their quality of life. Our teams are constantly exploring the potential of our compounds to find new therapeutic indications. They contribute to simplifying the practice of healthcare professionals through digital technology while personalising our support by combining patient knowledge and data analysis.

Innovation for tech and deep tech

Air Liquide is a major player in deep tech, offering, through its Global Markets & Technologies (GM&T) activity, innovative solutions to its customers in the space, aerospace and extreme cryogenics sectors for scientific research or quantum computing. The Group recently inaugurated the Campus Technologies Grenoble, dedicated to the design and manufacture of new technologies for the deep tech and energy transition markets (hydrogen and biomethane). At the same time, it supports a number of deep tech start-ups via its Accelair accelerator, located on the Paris Innovation Campus.

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Our innovation focuses on energy transition, digital, data and IA to offer sustainable solutions to our customers and patients.
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Emilie Mouren-Renouard

Vice President, Member of the Executive Committee, in charge of Innovation, Digital & IT, Intellectual Property and Global Markets & Technologies activity

35+ startups accelerated by ALIAD, the Group's venture capital investor
60% of R&D projects dedicated to the energy transition
3.5 billion data points collected every day
150+ use cases, products and programmes based on data and artificial intelligence

Science and digital, at the heart of all our innovations

A unique scientific expertise

Thanks to its strong expertise in Essential Small Molecules and its knowledge of data science, R&D has a wide range of skills in materials science, process engineering, life science, chemistry, combustion, cryogenics and analytical science that enable Air Liquide to continuously develop new applications for its molecules. With its 200 scientific and industrial partners, R&D is actively working to deepen its knowledge of Essential Small Molecules in order to explore new horizons and thus provide solutions to future challenges in industry and health.

Our 18 Essential Small Molecules are: oxygen (O₂), nitrogen (N₂), hydrogen (H₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH₄), argon (Ar), xenon (Xe), krypton (Kr), neon (Ne), helium (He), nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N₂O), acetylene (C₂H₂), ozone (O₃), water (H₂O) and silane (SiH₄).
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Digital in our offerings

For Air Liquide, leveraging the power of digital means offering an unparalleled experience to our customers. Every day, we create digital solutions and use data to optimize our assets, interact with our customers and patients, and leverage our ecosystems. The result? More efficiencies, more opportunities for growth and more sustainability.

Every day our teams of developers, designers, data scientists and network architects work with our business teams to imagine, develop, and deploy digital solutions for our customers, patients, employees, while contributing to the Group's efficiency.

Innovation with ecosystems

Our innovation is part of an open, global ecosystem. It is supported by our Innovation Campuses in Europe, the United States and Asia, the Campus Technologies Grenoble in France, and the Digital Factory.

Our innovation teams bring together profiles of different nationalities and skills: scientific and technical profiles in Research & Development, developers, engineers, network architects, designers, data scientists within Digital & IT (including Alizent), technical and commercial profiles for the Global Markets & Technologies activity, or for the i-LAB (the Group's foresight department which investigates emerging trends and topics, and develops foresight tools and methodologies) and ALIAD.

Accelerating innovation with start-ups

Air Liquide works with around a hundred start-ups to accelerate innovation and integrate new products, technologies and solutions into the Group's offerings.

With ALIAD, the Group's venture capital investor, Air Liquide supports innovative technological start-ups to help them grow, with the objective of helping them industrialize their products and access different markets. This support takes the form of minority stakes in the start-up's capital.

ACCELAIR, Air Liquide's deep tech start-up accelerator, hosted on the Innovation Paris Campus, offers selected start-ups access to experimentation spaces (laboratories, test platforms) and a support programme run by Air Liquide experts to accelerate the process of bringing their offer to market.