I was reading an article about a desalination startup company in Arizona. The author wonders if the company could bolster Arizona’s water supply with an undersea desalination system.

I started researching the industry.

OceanWell is definitely making waves (pun intended) because they’re trying to rethink a problem we’ve been struggling with for decades.

But my research did not stop there; instead, it expanded.

Let me walk you through this fascinating industry.

Desalination Industry Analysis | Giants vs Visionaries

Overview

The desalination industry converts saltwater into freshwater to address global water scarcity, relying heavily on membrane-based Reverse Osmosis (RO) and thermal distillation.

Let’s make a parenthesis regarding water scarcity.

It means the lack of sufficient available freshwater to meet demand, affecting over two-thirds of the global population for at least one month yearly.

Is water scarcity real or made up? That’s a tough question, a whole subject on its own.

We will assume that it is throughout the article.

Let’s continue…

The industry is primarily driven by demand in the Middle East and coastal regions.

It is transitioning toward renewable energy and improved efficiency to reduce high energy costs and minimise environmental impacts from brine disposal.

Brine disposal is the management of highly concentrated salt water from desalination and industry, relies on methods like ocean discharge, deep-well injection and evaporation ponds.

Key Aspects

Reverse Osmosis (RO) is the leading technology due to its lower energy consumption compared to thermal processes like Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) or Multi-Effect Distillation (MED).

The key drivers are the growing populations and industrial demand. The market is expanding into regions like the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.

Environmental impact…

Brine disposal (concentrated salt left over) is a critical issue. Most plants discharge it into the ocean, which can reduce oxygen levels and damage marine ecosystems. The industry is looking for more sustainable solutions.

The current trends focus on enhancing RO membranes to improve salt rejection, reducing energy use through energy recovery devices and using renewable energy sources (solar/wind) to power plants.

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar have the largest concentration of capacity, while nations like the USA and Spain are also investing in major projects.

The methods…

Reverse Osmosis (RO).

Membrane-based (RO) uses high pressure to push water through semi-permeable membranes to remove salt.

With thermal desalination, the distillation methods involve heating water to evaporate it, then condense it to remove salt.

The focus right now is on cost-effective and environmental friendly processes with new innovations in membrane technology such as thin-film composites and forward osmosis.

Current State

It’s a booming industry, to put it lightly. If you look at the industry today in 2026, it’s not just growing—it’s undergoing a total transformation. Desalination has moved from being a niche, last resort solution for wealthy, arid countries to a critical pillar of global water security.

The desalination market is currently seeing massive investment. With cities growing faster than their natural water sources can handle, governments everywhere are active. We’re talking about billions of dollars flowing into new projects across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia-Pacific and even parts of the US.

There’s a tech shift, making it green.

The old reputation of desalination was that it was a “brute force” process—expensive, resource-heavy and hard on the local environment. The industry is currently trying to shed that image with three big shifts.

The first is energy efficiency.

Reverse osmosis (RO) is the gold standard right now. Thanks to better membranes and advanced energy recovery devices, we’re using way less electricity to produce a gallon of water than we were even a decade ago.

The second shift is the integration of renewables.

You’re seeing more plants being powered entirely by dedicated solar or wind farms. The goal is to decouple the water supply from fossil fuels.

The third shift is AI and smart monitoring.

This is a big one. Engineers are using AI to “tune” these plants in real-time, adjusting for changes in seawater quality, weather, or energy availability to maximise efficiency.

The mindset… is cirqular.

The industry is realising that dumping brine back into the ocean isn’t a sustainable long-term strategy. The new frontier is brine mining—the idea of taking that hyper-salty leftover and extracting valuable minerals (like lithium or magnesium) from it. It turns a waste disposal problem into a potential profit center.

Let’s discuss the geopolitical point of view.

It’s important to note that desalination infrastructure is now considered strategic national security. Because so many coastal cities (and entire nations, like in the Gulf) rely on these plants for their daily drinking water, they are being protected like power grids. Unfortunately, that also makes them targets in times of conflict, which is a scary and very real vulnerability we’re seeing in some regions right now.

We’re at a point where the question is no longer if we should use desalination, but how we can do it without creating new environmental disasters in the process. The focus has shifted from “Can we pull this off?” to “Can we scale this sustainably?”

It’s exciting stuff, but it’s definitely a high-stakes game of engineering.

Others argue that we should focus on building massive high-tech plants while others vote for smaller, local projects.

Which direction would you follow?

Key Players

The desalination world is a mix of massive multinational engineering firms and agile, tech-focused startups. It’s an industry that requires deep pockets and high-level engineering, so you tend to see a few giants dominating the landscape, but with plenty of room for innovation.

The big players.

There are a few titans that have been around for decades. These are the companies governments call when they need to build a massive plant that serves an entire city or region.

Veolia is a massive French conglomerate. They are essentially the gold standard in the industry. They handle everything from municipal water to waste management. Their strategy is dominance through scale and acquisitions—they keep buying smaller tech firms to integrate the latest filtration and AI tech.

Another major company is Acciona, a Spanish infrastructure company that is huge in water. They are known for being very aggressive in the “design-build-operate” model. They don’t just build the plant and leave; they stick around to run it for years.

IDE Technologies is another key player. These folks are the smart engineers of the group, based out of Israel. They’ve been pioneers in reverse osmosis (the standard filtration tech) and have a really strong footprint in the Middle East and the US. They focus heavily on high-efficiency, energy-saving designs.

SUEZ (another huge French utility giant) and Doosan (based in South Korea) are the other mainstays. You’ll see their names on the massive mega-projects throughout the Middle East and Asia.

Their strategies, how they play the game.

The days of just building a big pipe are over. Today, these companies have to be much more sophisticated.

“Design-Build-Operate” (DBO).

Governments rarely want the headache of running a complex desalination plant. The big companies offer a turnkey solution. They say, “We will design it, we will build it and we will run it for the next 20 years for a set price per gallon.” This takes the operational risk off the government.

Renewable integration.

Energy costs are the biggest expense. The modern strategy is to build a solar or wind farm next to the desalination plant to power it. It’s better for the planet and it makes the water cheaper and more reliable in the long run.

Digital “tuning”.

Companies like Aquatech and others are using AI to monitor membranes in real-time. Instead of replacing filters on a strict schedule, they use sensors to see exactly when a filter is losing efficiency. It saves a fortune in maintenance costs.

Circular economy (brine mining).

This is the new holy grail. Instead of dumping the leftover salt (brine) back into the ocean, the newest strategy is to process it to extract valuable minerals—like lithium, magnesium, or even table salt—to sell on the side.

Who are their customers?

It’s not just drinking water for cities anymore.

Municipalities are the biggest customers. This is the bread and butter. Coastal cities (from San Diego to Dubai to Singapore) are their primary clients. They provide the drinking water for millions of people.

Industrial giants are next. This is a huge, growing segment. Semiconductor companies (like TSMC in Taiwan) need massive amounts of ultra-pure water for chip manufacturing. Data centers and mining operations also need consistent water supplies and are often willing to pay a premium to have their own private, reliable desalination setup.

Energy and power plants. Power plants need cooling water. If they are on the coast, they often use desalination to get the water quality they need for their internal systems.

Resorts and remote areas. This is where you see the modular desalination market. Smaller companies build containerised, plug-and-play plants for island resorts or remote mining camps where it’s cheaper to make your own water than to pipe it in from hundreds of miles away.

Basically, the big players are focused on mega-orojects that define national infrastructure, while the smaller, innovative firms are focused on decentralised water—getting water to the specific place that needs it, without needing to rebuild the entire city’s plumbing.

Other key companies.

ACWA Power develops massive desalination projects, particularly in the Middle East.

The Seven Seas Water Group is known for its “Water-as-a-Service” (WaaS) model.

There are also specialised and emerging companies.

Sychem is an Ellenic company specialised in high-tech pre-assembled modular desalination plants.

Consolidated Water (CWCO) develops and operates plants in areas with scarce water, such as the Cayman Islands.

Fluence specialises in decentralised seawater and brackish water desalination systems.

Energy Recovery focuses on pressure energy technology that increases efficiency in RO systems.

Safbon Water offers, among other products, containerised desalination systems.

Innovative and new technology companies.

Second Life RO (UAE) focuses on membrane regeneration.

Cetos Water (USA) advances membrane-less desalination through solvent extraction.

Aestuarium (Netherlands) uses bio-technology for salt removal.

Flocean focuses on subsea modular desalination plants utilising natural ocean pressure.

Other notable Ellenic companies.

Temak specialises in water treatment since 1980.

Devise Engineering focuses on containerised Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) plants.

Osmo manufactures reverse osmosis systems for seawater and brackish water.

Archean Single Member provides water treatment equipment.

The Big Problem with Desalination and OceanWell.

Think of traditional desalination plants as big, expensive industrial machines that suck in massive amounts of ocean water right near the shore. They filter out the salt, which is great, but they have two big strikes against them.

They are energy hogs. Pressurising seawater to push it through membranes takes a huge amount of electricity.

The brine issue. After they take the fresh water out, they’re left with a super-salty, concentrated brine that they dump back into the ocean. That can really mess up the local fish and plant life. Plus, the intake pipes sometimes accidentally suck in smaller sea creatures (fish larvae, plankton, etc.), which nobody wants.

Why OceanWell is different (and cool).

Instead of building a massive, ugly factory on the beach, OceanWell wants to drop these pods deep into the ocean (about 1,300+ feet down).

There is free pressure down there.

At that depth, the water pressure is naturally really high. They’re basically letting the ocean do the hard work of pushing that water through the filter membranes instead of using massive, power-hungry pumps to do it all on land. That’s where they claim to save about 40% on energy.

An eco-friendly brine?

Because they’re doing this in the open ocean where currents are stronger, the salty discharge isn’t dumped in one spot to create a dead zone. It disperses naturally, and they claim it matches the surrounding salinity pretty quickly.

No suction problems. They claim their intake systems are fish-friendly, so they aren’t sucking up marine life in the same way shoreline plants do.

I asked an expert and here’s the response.

“Honestly, I’m cautiously optimistic, but I’m also a realist.

It’s a brilliant idea. Diversifying our water supply is essential. If they can pull this off, it takes the pressure off our rivers and groundwater, which are definitely hurting. It’s decentralised water—which is smart infrastructure.

There is a hurdle, though. That’s maintenance.

Think about it—fixing a leaky pipe or a broken machine in your house is easy. Trying to fix a complex filtration machine 1,300 feet underwater? That is a logistical nightmare. The cost of sending robots or specialised crews down there to fix a clogged filter could eat up any money they save on electricity.

There are engineers who point out that you still have to deal with the chemistry of the water. Just dropping a filter deep down doesn’t magically solve the need for regular cleaning and maintenance.

It’s an awesome leap in technology. It might not be the magic bullet that solves all our water woes tomorrow, but it’s exactly the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we need. Trying to farm the ocean in a smarter, cleaner way is definitely a project worth watching”.

What do you think? Does the idea of drinking deep-sea water sound refreshing, or does the engineering side of it sound a bit too risky to you?

History

The history of desalination is actually a fascinating journey—it’s kind of a “rags to riches” story for a technology that went from a desperate survival tactic to a cornerstone of modern civilisation.

Think of it in three main acts.

Act 1: The Boil It and Hope Era (Ancient Times – 1950s).

For thousands of years, desalination wasn’t an industry—it was a survival skill.

There was ancient wisdom.

Ellenic sailors were boiling seawater on ships to capture the steam, which would condense into fresh water. Simple, effective, but incredibly slow and energy-intensive.

The shipboard years. By the 1800s, this was still how it was done on steamships. If you were stuck at sea, you used heat (distillation) to get fresh water.

The emergency phase. For a long time, land-based desalination was only for emergencies or incredibly remote outposts—like military garrisons on dry islands. It was too expensive for daily use by normal people.

Act 2: The Oil Boom and the Thermal Age (1950s – 1970s).

This is where the industry really began. When oil was discovered in the Middle East, the region started booming, but it had almost zero fresh water.

Multi-stage flash (MSF). This was the big breakthrough. These plants used massive amounts of heat to flash-boil seawater in multiple stages. Since these countries had cheap, abundant oil, they could afford the massive energy costs to run these thermal plants.

The result?

It proved that you could actually support millions of people using nothing but the ocean. It was a massive proof-of-concept for the world, but it was incredibly “dirty” and resource-intensive.

Act 3: The Membrane Revolution (1960s – Today).

This is the game-changer that brought us to where we are now. In the 1960s, researchers (notably at UCLA) perfected the reverse osmosis (RO) membrane.

A shift.

Instead of boiling water (thermal), RO uses high pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane that traps the salt and lets the fresh water pass through.

It is significantly more energy-efficient than boiling water. Over the last 40 years, the industry has spent its time perfecting these membranes. We went from early, fragile filters to the super-durable, high-tech polymer membranes we use today.

Next, a global spread.

As the technology got cheaper and more efficient, it stopped being just a Middle East oil money solution. Countries like Israel, Australia, Spain and the US (California, Florida) started adopting RO because it became a cost-competitive way to drought-proof their cities.

Why is history important?

It explains the “baggage” the industry has today. For a long time, desalination was associated with cheap energy, expensive water. Now, the industry is frantically trying to pivot to expensive energy, cheap water by moving toward solar, wind and incredibly efficient energy-recovery systems.

We’ve essentially graduated from using fire and brute force to using smart, high-tech filtration. It’s like moving from a steam engine to an electric car—the goal is the same, but the way we get there is completely different.

Does it surprise you that the technology is actually quite old, or did you think it was a more recent invention?

Consumer Behaviour & Marketing Strategies

Boring utility services can actually become fascinating stories once they hit the public eye.

If we look at the evolution of consumer perception over the last 60 years, it’s really a story about moving from “Is this safe?” to “Is this sustainable?”

Here is how that shift played out and how the marketing (and the industry’s vibe) had to change along with it.

The 1960s – 1980s: The Mystery Water Phase.

Back in the early days of widespread desalination, the general public didn’t really know much about it. It was mostly a niche thing happening on oil rigs, ships, or in far-off deserts.

The consumer mindset?

Most people were just happy to have water. If they thought about it at all, it was a bit suspicious. Is this processed water? Is it safe? Does it taste like chemicals?

The marketing strategy.

The goal was simply proof of concept. Marketing wasn’t about branding or green initiatives; it was about reassurance. Engineers and governments focused on proving the water was pure, safe and met all health standards. It was about functionality. The selling was done to governments, not consumers.

The 1990s – 2010s: The Drought-Proof Era.

Cities started needing a “Plan B” for when the rain didn’t fall. This is when desalination moved from exotic to necessary.

People started accepting desalination as a necessary evil for drought-proofing. They were less worried about the safety of the water—mostly because the tech had proven itself—but they were becoming aware of the cost. It was expensive water and people knew it.

The focus of marketing shifted to security and reliability. Governments and companies sold it as drought insurance. They promised that even if the reservoirs dried up, the tap would keep running. It was a utilitarian sell. We are buying you peace of mind.

The 2020s – Today: The Sustainability Mandate.

This is the big pivot we are in right now. The public is much more environmentally conscious and they are putting desalination under a microscope.

The question today isn’t “Is it safe to drink?” It’s “What is the cost to the planet?” People are genuinely worried about marine life, the energy costs and the brine dumping. It’s no longer enough to just produce fresh water; it has to be clean water, ethically produced.

This is why you see the big industry players obsessing over terms like circular economy, energy-efficient and green energy in their marketing campaigns.

They are no longer just selling water; they are selling sustainability.

They highlight solar-powered plants, fish-friendly intakes and brine-mining technologies.

They are essentially branding their utility infrastructure to prove they are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The industry has been forced to grow up. In the beginning, it could hide in the shadows of industrial engineering. Now, because water is such a sensitive public resource, these companies have to act more like tech companies—obsessing over their ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) scores and trying to win the court of public opinion.

It’s actually a great example of how the public forces industries to change. Without those people asking, “What are you doing to the ocean with that salty sludge?” the industry might have taken decades longer to start focusing on brine mining or renewable energy.

It’s funny to think that 50 years ago, nobody cared where the water came from as long as it wasn’t salty—and today, we’re practically auditing the filtration membranes ourselves, right?

Does that shift make sense to you? It feels like we’ve gone from being naive consumers to conscious partners in the water supply.

Statistics

It’s wild to look at the numbers. When you dig into the data, you really see how this niche technology has ballooned into a massive global industry that’s propping up the water supply for hundreds of millions of people.

The Market Size.

It’s a fast growing industry. The desalination industry is currently a ~$30 billion global market.

What’s most interesting isn’t just the current size, but the trajectory.

It’s projected to nearly double over the next decade, reaching toward $60 billion by 2034. We’re talking about steady growth.

Why?

This isn’t just about people needing drinking water; it’s being driven by industrial giants (like semiconductor makers) who need ultrapure water for tech manufacturing and by cities trying to drought-proof their entire economies.

Global Capacity.

We are currently producing roughly 100+ million cubic meters of desalinated water every single day.

That’s enough to keep a lot of faucets running—literally hundreds of millions of people rely on this every day.

The Middle East and North Africa are still the heavy hitters, accounting for about half of all global capacity. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are effectively the powerhouses of the desalination world.

Asia-Pacific (led by India and China) is growing the fastest right now because of the massive urbanisation pressures there.

The Technology Split.

If you’re wondering how we’re doing it, the game is almost entirely won by reverse osmosis (RO).

There’s a split. RO accounts for roughly 70% of the market. It’s the modern way—efficient, scalable and increasingly powered by renewable energy.

There’s an old way, too.

Thermal desalination (boiling water) is still around, mostly in places with cheap, abundant natural gas or oil, but it’s slowly losing ground to the cleaner RO process.

The Environmental Tax (The Big Challenge).

This is the statistic that everyone in the industry is currently obsessing over. Brine production.

For every liter of fresh water we produce, we are creating a significant amount of concentrated, salty brine.

Estimates suggest we’re pumping out ~140+ million cubic meters of brine daily.

The industry pivot.

This is why brine mining (recovering minerals like lithium or magnesium from that waste) has gone from a maybe one day idea to a major investment target in 2026. Companies are desperate to turn that environmental liability into a profit stream.

Energy Consumption.

The elephant in the room has always been energy.

Desalination currently accounts for roughly 0.4% of total global electricity consumption.

While that sounds small, it’s a huge focus for optimisation. Modern RO plants are achieving record-breaking efficiency (some getting down to ~2.2 kWh per cubic meter) and the industry’s big push for 2026 is coupling plants directly to dedicated solar or wind farms to bring energy consumption down.

The industry has gone from being a boutique solution for oil-rich nations to a massive, $30-billion-a-year engine for global survival. The big battleground for the next decade isn’t if we can desalinate, but how we can do it without wrecking the ocean or blowing the energy budget.

Technologies

That’s the engine room of the whole industry! It’s actually pretty interesting to see how these different technologies play together. You can basically split them into two camps. The ones that use heat (Thermal) and the ones that use filters (Membrane).

The Membrane Camp (The Modern Way).

This is where about 70-80% of the world’s desalination happens today. It’s the standard because it’s much more energy-efficient than boiling water.

Reverse Osmosis (RO).

This is the king of the hill. It uses high-pressure pumps to push seawater against a semi-permeable membrane. The water goes through, but the salt gets blocked. It’s reliable, scalable and gets more efficient every year as we improve the quality of those membranes.

Nanofiltration.

Think of this as “RO Lite”. It’s slightly less aggressive than standard RO, usually used for brackish water (water that’s a little salty but not ocean-level). It’s great for softening water or removing specific contaminants.

Electrodialysis (ED/EDR).

This is totally different. Instead of pushing water through a filter, it uses an electric current to pull the salt ions (the sodium and chloride) out of the water through specialised membranes. It’s fantastic for brackish water and often lasts longer without clogging than RO filters.

The Thermal Camp (The Old School Way).

These processes essentially mimic the water cycle—evaporating water and then collecting the clean steam. They’re often only used now where energy (often waste heat from power plants) is incredibly cheap.

Multi-Stage Flash (MSF).

This is like a series of pressure cookers. You heat the water, then flash-boil it in a vacuum chamber. Because it’s in a vacuum, it boils at a lower temperature. You do this in several stages to squeeze out every drop of efficiency.

Multi-Effect Distillation (MED).

Similar to MSF, but it uses the steam from one effect (or stage) to heat the next one. It’s very thermodynamic and efficient, often used in massive, industrial-scale setups.

Vapor Compression (VC).

This uses a mechanical compressor to raise the pressure (and temperature) of the water vapor, which is then used to heat the incoming seawater. It’s great for smaller, standalone plants because you don’t need a massive boiler system.

The Smart Layer (The 2026 Tech Upgrade).

This is what makes modern plants look more like software companies than old factories.

Energy Recovery Devices (ERDs).

This is arguably the biggest game-changer. These devices capture the high-pressure energy from the waste brine stream before it’s dumped and feed it back into the pumps. It’s cut the energy cost of RO plants by massive margins.

AI & Digital Twins.

We’re using AI to monitor every pump, filter and valve. It can predict exactly when a membrane needs cleaning (instead of guessing), adjust energy use based on real-time electricity prices and even predict potential leaks.

Brine Mining/Management.

We are finally moving from dumping to mining. Startups are using advanced crystallisation and chemical separation tech to pull out lithium, magnesium and other minerals from the waste brine. It turns a trash problem into a treasure hunt.

Renewable Hybridisation.

We’re increasingly seeing desalination plants that are hardwired to dedicated solar or wind farms, using battery or thermal storage to keep the water flowing even when the sun isn’t shining.

If you look at the cutting edge, it’s all about graphene and bio-mimetic membranes. Scientists are working on filters that are literally one atom thick, which would let water pass through with almost zero pressure required. It’s still early days, but if that hits the commercial market, it would be as big of a jump as the move from thermal to RO was back in the 60s.

How a simple process like removing salt has evolved into this high-tech symphony of materials science, AI and renewable energy? 

Trends & Innovation

Let’s examine the trends so we can discover how startups and smaller companies can innovate in such a demanding industry that requires huge investments.

It’s a classic Catch-22, a “no-win” dilemma, a paradoxical situation where you are trapped by contradictory rules.

To build a massive desalination plant, you need hundreds of millions of dollars and decades of government trust. But the most exciting stuff is happening outside those mega-projects.

For a smaller startup, trying to out-build giants on a city-wide plant is a losing game. The secret is not to be the big guy, but to be the smart, agile partner that the big guys—or smaller, specialised industries—desperately need.

The Startup Playbook.

Let’s look at the future trends, where the action is happeniing.

The industry is moving toward three big pillars.

The first pillar is batch and semi-batch processes:

Traditionally, desalination is continuous — it’s always running at full tilt. Newer, modular batch systems change pressure dynamically, using exactly the amount of energy needed for the salt level at that moment. It’s a massive energy saver that’s perfect for smaller, smarter units.

The second pillar, digital brains (AI & digital twins).

Plants are getting “smarter.” Startups are creating software overlays that use AI to predict when a membrane will foul (clog) or when the water intake quality is changing, allowing for proactive maintenance rather than reactive shutdowns.

The third pillar, circular economy (brine mining).

This is the gold rush of the decade. We’re finally figuring out how to stop dumping brine and start mining it for lithium, magnesium and other critical minerals. A startup that creates a cost-effective way to extract lithium from brine is worth its weight in gold.

How to innovate without needing billions?

If I was a founder today, I wouldn’t try to build a city-sized plant. I’d focus on the niche segments that the big players find too small or too messy to touch.

Enter the “Water-as-a-Service” (WaaS) Model.

Instead of selling a machine, sell the water. This lowers the barrier for customers who don’t want to spend millions upfront. You build a modular, containerised unit, place it at a resort, a mine, or a remote island and charge them a per-gallon fee. It makes you a utility provider rather than just an equipment manufacturer.

Another option, focus on difficult water (industrial niche).

Municipalities are risk-averse (they don’t want to experiment with drinking water). Industries are not. Semiconductor plants, mining operations and food-processing facilities need ultra-pure water. They are much more willing to test new tech, pay a premium and help you pilot your system if it solves their specific problem (like PFAS removal or mineral recovery).

Another one, modular “Plug-and-Play”.

Stop building bespoke, giant plants. Build containerised desalination units that can be shipped, dropped on a site and running in days. If a drought hits or an industrial site needs a surge in water capacity, your modular unit is the solution they can buy now, not in five years.

Alternatively, you can partner with the incumbents.

This is the smartest play. The big giants are actually looking for innovation. They have the sales teams and the trust of governments, but they move slowly. If you develop a superior, energy-saving membrane or a revolutionary brine-mining sensor, don’t compete—license your tech to them. You get the scale; they get the innovation.

On top of that, you can utilise the “add-on” strategy.

Don’t build the plant; build the upgrade. Create a better sensor, a better cleaning chemical, or a better AI model that can be retrofitted onto existing thousands of plants around the world. You’re not selling a $100M plant; you’re selling a $50k software fix that saves the plant owner $200k in energy costs per year. That is a very easy yes.

The massive plant era is for the giants. The smart, agile and specialised era is for the startups. If you can solve a specific, painful problem—like high energy costs, brine disposal, or maintenance downtime—the industry will come to you.

It’s less about changing the world with one giant pipe and more about making millions of smaller, smarter and cleaner adjustments to the way we handle water.

Does that help you see where the white space is in the industry? It’s a lot less about concrete and steel and a lot more about software, specialised engineering and new business models, isn’t it?

Final Message (Businesses & Consumers)

That was quite a journey! We covered a lot of ground—from deep-sea pods to the history of membrane filters. Since we’re wrapping this up, I want to leave you with a final thought for the two main groups that keep this industry moving.

For the business owners, I will say this. Think small, solve big.

If you’re looking to enter or innovate in this space, stop trying to build the next “Hoover Dam” of desalination. That era is for the giants. The real opportunity today is in the details.

Be the tech in utility.

The big guys have the pipes; you have the potential to be the brains. Whether it’s AI-driven maintenance, a more efficient membrane, or a brine-mining startup, your value lies in upgrading the massive, sluggish systems that already exist.

Target the pain, not the volume.

Don’t chase municipal water supply projects right out of the gate. Look for the industrial clients—the data centers, the chip manufacturers, the mining operations—who have a pain or problem (a need for high-quality, reliable, sustainable water) and the budget to pay for a custom, modular solution.

The circular mindset is your competitive edge.

If you can turn a waste product (like salty brine) into a commodity (like minerals), you aren’t just an expense; you’re a profit center. That is the kind of business model that will get funding in 2026 and beyond.

For the consumers, a simple message. Value the tap.

For the rest of us, my advice is simple. Stay curious and stay conscious. Water is necessary. We are used to turning on the tap and having unlimited, cheap water. That world is changing. Acknowledge that the water coming out of your tap is the result of massive human ingenuity and, often, a significant environmental cost.

Support the green shift.

When you hear about local water projects, support the ones that prioritise renewable energy and responsible brine management. You are the voter and the taxpayer; your demand for cleaner desalination is exactly what forces the big utility companies to change their practices.

Don’t take it for granted.

Whether it’s a drop of rain or a glass of desalinated water, water is the foundation of everything. Being a conscious consumer means understanding where your resources come from and respecting them enough not to waste them.