Today, Tencent announced 16 winners that are set to receive a portion of the nearly $30 million award from its CarbonX 2.0 program.
The announcement was made at a flagship event co-hosted with TED at the London Science Museum as part of the 2026 London Climate Action Week.
At the venue, Tencent shared the names of the winning companies and took the opportunity to highlight the substantial progress made in its own emissions reductions, driven by renewable energy, efficient design, lower-carbon infrastructure, and complementary initiatives that support wider decarbonization.
10 of the 16 CarbonX 2.0 winners specialize in 4 critical climate technology areas, including carbon dioxide removal (CDR), carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) for steel, Carbon Utilization (CCU / CarbonXmade, and Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES).
The remaining 6 winners will receive tailored support around Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV), carbon credit procurement commitments, and green-premium subsidy mechanisms.
Filtered from a pool of 660 applications and 50 finalists, the official CarbonX 2.0 winners are:
Aircapture (US)
Cella Mineral Storage (US/Kenya)
Nanjing University (China)
Octavia Carbon (Kenya)
Parallel Carbon (UK/US)
Shanghai Advanced Research Institute CAS (China)
VITO (Belgium)
CERT Systems (Canada)
Seerstone (US)
Quino Energy (US)
Andes (US)
Flux (Kenya)
OCOchem (US)
Peking University (China)
PyroCCS (Germany)
SYNLIFE (China)
Relevant: Tencent Expands CarbonX Program To Bridge Climate Innovation Gap
Commenting on what this win means for its team and operations in Kenya, direct air capture (DAC) company Octavia Carbon tells Carbon Herald that this is a significant validation of the work the company has been building in Kenya over the past few years. “With this backing, we will accelerate the deployment of Project Hummingbird, which is currently underway, and gain access to Tencent’s network of partners and resources that would otherwise take years to build.”
When asked about what its winning factor is, the company says that it comes down to speed and demonstration. “We have not just theorized about DAC in Kenya; we have built it, tested it, and proven it works here. That tangible progress, grounded in Kenya’s unique geothermal and geological advantages, is what we believe sets us apart.”
For Octavia Carbon, this win comes just a month after the company successfully made an underground CO2 injection in Kenya, in partnership with mineralization company Kenya.
Talking about this breakthrough and the learning curve from this process, Octavia shares that one of the clearest lessons was that capture and storage cannot be treated as separate problems. “In practice, they are deeply interdependent, and getting that integration right requires constant refinement,” the company says.
Read more: Breaking: Direct Air Capture Breakthrough In Kenya Signals New Era For CO2 Geological Storage
“With the end-to-end pathway now demonstrated, our immediate next steps are credit issuance, translating the verified removal of CO2 into carbon credits that can be delivered to buyers and recognized by the market, and scaling our carbon removal capacity to reach full-scale project operations.”
Octavia has also been busy working on its landmark Hummingbird project in Kenya’s Rift Valley, which will operate with an initial annual carbon removal capacity of 250 metric tons, working towards 1,000 tons per year as operations advance.
“Project Hummingbird remains a core part of our roadmap,” says Octavia. “We are deploying it in phases, with Phase 1 targeted for completion by August this year, comprising four units of our second generation technology with a targeted capacity of 480 tonnes of CO2 per year by the end of the year. Phases 2 and 3 will add a further eight modules, with targeted completion in 2027, bringing the project to a gross capacity of 1,500 tonnes per year.”
Image courtesy of Octavia Carbon
Relevant: Octavia Carbon Unveils Project Hummingbird, Global South’s First DAC Plant
Looking ahead, Octavia will focus on actively exploring concrete mineralization in Kenya. For this purpose, the company is collaborating with two partners: Zen Carbon, an emerging startup in the space, and Bamburi PLC, one of the largest cement producers in East Africa.
While discussing future expectations, the company says, ”By the end of this year, the most significant milestone we anticipate is Kenya issuing its first DAC carbon credits, with Octavia among a very small group of companies globally that will have achieved this. We also expect continued investment interest in the region as activity here becomes increasingly visible to the global market.”
On a broader future scenario, Octavia shares, “In a five-year perspective, we believe Kenya will become one of the leading DAC deployment locations in the world. The fundamentals are there: geothermal energy, the right geology, growing local technical expertise, and increasing policy interest in carbon markets. With the right infrastructure and regulatory frameworks in place, Kenya will be home to commercial-scale DAC operations within that window, contributing to global carbon removal targets while building a new pillar of the green economy on the continent.”
