Verkko Robotics Unveils VOLTAIC: A Smarter, Greener AI

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-30

London-based Verkko Robotics, a DeepTech European AI research lab, just dropped something big: VOLTAIC. It's an AI system that keeps learning over time, remembers what it learned, and uses way less energy and computing power than today's top multimodal models. If the early performance claims hold up, this tech could shake up the economics of the frontier AI industry and help lay the groundwork for AI sovereignty in Europe. ### Breaking the Bigger-Model Arms Race "The AI industry has been locked in an arms race of bigger models. With VOLTAIC, we aim to break that paradigm," says Stephen McCreath, co-founder and CEO of Verkko Robotics. "As a consequence of what we are doing, in the future we will be less reliant on large data centres. This is the most exciting time in development, both within Verkko Robotics Ltd and artificial intelligence as we move towards continuous learning." VOLTAIC arrives at a time when everyone's questioning how much energy frontier AI really needs, and how dependent we are on big US providers. It's built for extreme efficiency - using 98% less energy than a traditional LLM. The architecture enforces sparse networks, meaning most neurons and computational pathways stay inactive at any given moment. That's like having a car that only fires up the engine when you hit the gas, not idling all the time. This design slashes power consumption and makes VOLTAIC perfect for running on private hardware, without needing massive data centers. ### Stunning Benchmarks and Real-World Potential In independent continual learning benchmarks, VOLTAIC achieved a catastrophic forgetting rate of just ~1.2% on Core50 and 77% accuracy on Split ImageNet-1K - that's 14 points above the previous record. These results put it at the top of its class while delivering performance at a fraction of the energy cost of conventional transformer-based systems. Verkko's internal benchmarks show VOLTAIC costs 1/50th per query compared to leading LLMs. It's still in active development ahead of its Q4 2026 release, but these early numbers signal a massive shift away from heavy transformer models. ### Solving the Catastrophic Forgetting Problem Alongside McCreath is Giancarlo Cobino, Chief Scientist and co-founder, an AI researcher with over 20 years of experience in neuroscience-inspired computing and enterprise AI. "By shifting from dense, brute-force computation to sparse, adaptive threshold dynamics, we have built an architecture that learns continuously in real time and resists catastrophic forgetting. This efficiency allows the system to adapt to personal behaviour and individual user habits locally, without massive power demands," explains Cobino. Dr. Fabio Vallone, a PhD physicist and researcher at the University of Pisa's Department of Excellence in Robotics & AI at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, one of the world's leading institutes for advanced robotics, adds: "Voltaic represents a significant breakthrough in continual learning by directly addressing the challenge of catastrophic forgetting, ushering in a paradigm shift in how we train adaptive systems. By introducing novel methodologies, the Verkko Robotics team is unlocking previously unexplored avenues for practical applications and redefining human-AI interaction." ### A Foundation for European AI Sovereignty Right now, queries sent to most US-based AI providers involve transferring data outside EEA jurisdiction. Contractual safeguards can manage this, but they can't eliminate the risk. VOLTAIC offers a way to keep data local, reducing that dependency. As recently as June 3, the European Commission unveiled its European Technological Sovereignty Package. President Ursula von der Leyen stated: "We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our industries competitive, and our data secure." VOLTAIC could be a key piece of that puzzle. ### Key Takeaways - **Energy efficiency:** 98% less energy than a traditional LLM - **Cost savings:** 1/50th the cost per query compared to leading LLMs - **Memory retention:** Catastrophic forgetting rate of just ~1.2% - **Accuracy:** 77% on Split ImageNet-1K, 14 points above previous record - **Release date:** Q4 2026, but already showing massive promise VOLTAIC isn't just another AI model - it's a paradigm shift. By focusing on efficiency, continuous learning, and data sovereignty, Verkko Robotics is challenging the status quo and offering a glimpse into a future where AI is smarter, greener, and more independent.