The Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017, which claimed 72 lives, highlighted the devastating consequences of failures in building safety, information and emergency response.

In response, Aequus founder and Chief Product Officer Andrew Kelly began exploring how computational fluid dynamics, physics-based modelling and AI could be used to model the spread of fire through high-rise buildings quickly enough to guide decisions as an emergency unfolds.

This research led to a broader technical insight: effective decisions depend not only on the speed or sophistication of a system’s analysis, but on the integrity of the data it receives. By validating real-world signals against physical models, Andrew sought to produce information that decision-makers could rely on under extreme conditions.

That principle now informs Aequus’ wider mission. PILOT independently verifies the operational state reported by AI-enabled and automated systems, helping determine whether the conditions they describe are physically and logically credible.

The same need applies across industrial control, autonomous vehicles, robotics, defence and data centres. As AI takes a greater role in operational decision-making, Aequus is focused on helping ensure that those decisions are based on trustworthy system states.