“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke
I’ve just returned from the DLD Conference in Munich, where I presented DexMat‘s magical technologies in a featured session exploring how today’s seemingly magical innovations will shape tomorrow’s world. The 2025 DLD Munich conference brought together visionaries and innovators from across the globe, turning the city into a temporary hub for breakthrough technologies. While my trip was brief, it was packed with moments that showcased how Munich itself embodies the intersection of tradition and technological innovation.
Munich’s Magical Contrasts
My temporary home was the luxurious Bayerischer Hof hotel, across from which stands perhaps the most unexpected sight in Munich: a Michael Jackson memorial where devoted fans still leave notes and mementos. This juxtaposition of old-world European elegance and pop culture devotion somehow perfectly captures Munich’s character – a city that seamlessly blends tradition with innovation, much like the magical technologies featured at DLD.
Despite the winter chill, I couldn’t resist exploring the snow-covered English Gardens during my morning runs. There’s something magical about running through the world’s largest urban park as snowflakes drift down around you, following the river’s path through this winter wonderland. It’s a reminder that even in highly industrialized cities, where breakthrough technologies are born, nature can still claim significant space.
From Palace to Panel
My first evening began with a state reception at the Residenz Munich – a setting that could make anyone feel like they’ve stepped into a historical drama. This was followed by a dinner specifically for innovative materials companies, where conversations about the future of manufacturing flowed as freely as the excellent German wine.
The DLD Munich conference itself was a feast for the curious mind. Before my session on magical technologies, I found myself inspired by visionaries across multiple disciplines. When it was my turn to share DexMat’s “magical” innovation, I presented our vision for the materials revolution:
Let’s talk about materials. We like to talk about energy, but energy and materials are inexorably tied together. It takes tremendous amounts of materials to generate energy – and it takes tremendous amounts of energy to produce materials. Today’s materials – like steel, aluminum, and copper – consume more than 12% of global energy and account for more than 8% of global CO2 emissions.
Quick show of hands: who here believes that steel, aluminum, and copper will be decarbonized by 2030? 2040? 2050? Actually steel, aluminum and copper will NOT be decarbonized by 2050 – because, by 2050, they will be completely obsolete. It’s a trick question, because they are not actually today’s materials; they are yesterday’s.
I’m Bryan Guido Hassin, the CEO of DexMat, where we produce Galvorn, an advanced nanomaterial made of pure carbon. Galvorn was invented by Nobel-winning scientists at Rice University. It is many times stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum – lighter than carbon fiber even – as conductive as copper, and produced not by combusting carbon, but by capturing it.
We produce Galvorn in many forms; this is a small sample of 13,000 meters of our industrial fibre. This is 20x stronger than most grades of steel, and I would challenge you even to attempt to pick up a spool of 13,000 meters of steel cable, or copper wire. And, by the way, when this fiber reaches end of life, it can be scalably and efficiently reformed into new Galvorn materials with no loss of properties over and over again; it’s a truly circular material.
One of the first questions people often have is: great, so it’s a magical material with incredible properties, but what can it do? The mundane answer is: what can steel, aluminium, copper, and carbon fiber do? Galvorn can generally do the same things, and often do them a lot better, because of its better properties. For example, we can build Galvorn bridges 10-20 times as long as bridges that are constrained by the weight of steel.
What interests us more, though, is what Galvorn can do that these incumbent materials can’t! For example, advanced power transmission lines that are stronger, lighter, more conductive, and more resilient to extreme weather; next-generation data centers that process heat more efficiently and use much less energy; and lightweight, flexible garments that provide cut and ballistic protection while keeping you warm or cool and simultaneously collecting and transmitting your vital signs.
The application space is huge, but the challenge for Galvorn has traditionally been cost, because we were producing it at a small scale for niche applications in space. However, Galvorn production enjoys a very steep exponential learning rate – steeper than solar and batteries, even.
To put that in context, when Galvorn was invented in the lab at Rice, the cost to produce it was on par with mythical materials, like Unobtanium. Since spinning out from Rice a few years ago, DexMat has scaled up production capacity 3,000x and reduced cost 99.6%. This has brought Galvorn to cost parity with exotic materials like gold malibdunom and bismuth telluride, already enabling applications like thermoelectric power generation, and other exotic applications that have traditionally been constrained by such legacy materials – for which we were recently featured on the cover of the journal, Science. When we scale up another 3,000x, we will be at cost parity with specialty materials like carbon fiber and Kevlar. When we scale up a further 3,000x, we will have lower cost than even commodity materials like steel, aluminum, and copper.
Better properties and lower costs are traditionally the mix of conditions that render incumbent materials obsolete and lead to widespread materials revolutions. So, while we ask “How will we power the future?” we must simultaneously ask “With which materials will we build that future?” It won’t be with yesterday’s materials. It will be with materials that today seem like magic, but tomorrow will be as mundane and ubiquitous as, well, carbon.
The Evening’s Encore
The DLD conference’s Chairman’s Dinner brought an unexpected treat – a special appearance by Nile Rodgers, the legendary guitarist, producer, and songwriter behind some of the most iconic hits of the past five decades. From co-founding Chic (“Le Freak”) to producing for David Bowie (“Let’s Dance”) and Madonna (“Like a Virgin”), Rodgers has shaped the sound of popular music. He played some of his songs and talked about the innovation process that transformed then from ideas into enduring hits.
The night continued at what might be the most unique party venue I’ve experienced: Occhio, a luxury lamp showroom. However, my body clock had other plans, so I checked out early. In an effort to reset to American time, I found myself pulling a work all-nighter in the hotel – though I suspect this wasn’t quite what the Bayerischer Hof’s designers had in mind for their elegant spaces.
Munich Impressions
Although my visit to DLD Munich was brief, the city revealed itself as a perfect backdrop for discussions of magical technologies, with its fascinating contrasts: industrial might alongside natural beauty, historical grandeur next to cutting-edge innovation. While I would have loved to explore more, my thoughts were already turning homeward to Katie and our children. After all, even the most magical technology can’t replace family time, and I was eager to relieve my partner from single-parent duty.
As my plane lifted off from Munich’s airport, I couldn’t help but reflect on how this city, like the technologies showcased at DLD, represents a perfect blend of the magical and the practical. Sometimes the most revolutionary ideas come from places where tradition and innovation dance together – just like snow falling on ancient gardens in a thoroughly modern city.