Diversification by design: Advanced Innergy spreads its reach across industries

• AIH’s diversification strategy spans a dozen industries across subsea, thermal and marine applications
• Shared materials expertise supports products for markets ranging from offshore energy to battery storage and defence
• Customer-led product development creates opportunities to enter new markets and expand existing relationships

A potential artificial intelligence bubble threatening to burst; government bond yields at multi-year highs as debts balloon to unprecedented levels; massive supply chain shocks caused by international conflicts and shipping disruptions; oil prices at six-month highs with no signs of relief.

Volatility isn’t just a buzzword. These days it’s the name of the game.

When even the most well-respected market analysts are scratching their heads, your average punter is left asking the question – how do I protect myself and my investments amid all this chaos?

Ask six economists and you’ll likely get seven different answers, but one core theme emerges: diversification.

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz put it – “Diversification is the only free lunch in finance.”

The idea is to hedge against downturns in any one industry or market by spreading investment – and consequently risk – across multiple diverse areas.

One ASX-listed materials engineering company is looking to embody that concept, expanding its materials expertise and offerings into a dozen different markets across a wide swathe of industries.

Advanced Innergy Holdings (ASX:AIH) describes itself as a market-led materials science and engineering company with three main service segments: subsea, thermal and marine.

AIH CEO Andrew Bennion said the largest of AIH’s targeted industries was the subsea segment … a core area of expertise for the group.

“Subsea covers offshore deepwater projects where we can provide multiple scopes through the breadth of products we offer,” he explained.

“The second-largest segment is thermal. While this also has a significant subsea element, we have a broad product offering for industrial applications, mining, and heating and ventilation.

“Marine is a growing segment for the group, with a broad range of products supporting commercial and recreational vessels.

“Across all three segments, our focus is on leveraging our materials expertise, which often means providing some form of protection.

“Combined with our broad product portfolio, this enables us to deliver solutions for customers operating in particularly demanding environments.”

Aggressive, targeted diversification

‘Broad’ might be a bit of an understatement for AIH’s product offerings.

The company holds more than 200 active and pending patents and more than 90 type approvals, a type of regulatory certificate that confirms a product can perform to international safety and technical standards.

Providing everything from subsea power cable protection to acoustic noise suppression and lithium battery containment, Advanced Innergy Holdings is nothing if not industry-agnostic.

AIH has already made inroads into:

• subsea and deepwater;
• offshore oil and gas;
• offshore wind farms;
• electric vehicles and lithium batteries;
• grid storage batteries;
• naval defence and military;
• commercial marine and shipping;
• aquaculture and seaborne farming;
• chemical and petrochemical processing;
• heavy industry and manufacturing;
• mining and resources; and
• aerospace.

“I view diversification not only as a survival strategy but as an aggressive strategy, because the next windfall might come from a surprising place,” American economist Peter L. Bernstein once said.

“Diversification of risk matters not just defensively, but because it maximises returns as well, because we expose ourselves to all of the opportunities that there may be out there.”

For Advanced Innergy Holdings, their diversified market offering is a deliberate strategy, cultivated in direct cooperation with its customers and clients.

“We are innovative by nature and entrepreneurial, and we have built a strong reputation for problem-solving,” Bennion said.

“When our customers have a specific challenge, they know they can approach us, and we are very confident in our ability to develop a solution for them.

“That’s what excites the team, and it’s also what drives the development of new products.

“If we identify a niche where we believe there is a genuine customer need and a commercially viable opportunity, we have the capability to develop and bring a solution to market.”

Plenty of room to grow

Some 108 gigawatts (GW) of new battery storage capacity was installed in 2025, a whopping 40% increase on the year before, according to the International Energy Agency.

Rapid build outs in solar and wind generation are increasing demand for grid-balance and energy storage solutions, which in turn require battery protection, fire containment and testing services and products.

BloombergNEF’s latest outlook upgraded its forecast for battery installations, lifting expected power capacity by 19% to 188GW and stored energy by 17% to 535GWh in 2026.

With oil prices hovering above US$100 a barrel for Brent, offshore oil and gas development has also kicked back into gear, with forecasts of US$137 billion to be committed in offshore field-development capex in 2026.

That’s an increase of about 30% from US$105.2bn in 2025 according to Westwood Insights.

At least 38 offshore developments received the final investment decision green light in the first half of 2026, a 90% uptick from the year before.

The contract demand for engineering, procurement and construction for floating production systems is consequently forecast to more than double year-on-year from US$15.6bn to US$37.7bn.

Quadrupling of offshore wind capacity by 2035

The offshore opportunity broadens further when accounting for wind-based production – some 9.3GW was installed in 2025 and more than 50GW of wind generation was under construction as of June 2026.

Predicted to reach a compound average annual growth rate of 24% between 2026 and 2030, offshore wind promises to become one of the world’s fastest-growing mainstream energy technologies if it remains on its current trajectory.

“We expect to see exceptional growth over the next decade leading to a quadrupling of the world’s offshore wind capacity,” Global Wind Energy Council deputy CEO Rebecca Williams said.

“In less than five years we have faced two major crises caused by continued reliance on imported fuels.

“It’s now abundantly clear that we’re in a race to electrify our economies and deploy as much reliable, homegrown renewable energy as possible before the next crisis erupts.

“Building an arc of offshore wind turbines along a country’s coast is a way to guard against future supply shocks.”

For AIH, the opportunity is clear. The company has already leveraged its customer relationships and engineering expertise to create myriad offerings in growing markets.

Now, the task will be to maintain and grow its market share while continuing to diversify into new viable industries.

“In general, we are attracted to markets that are highly regulated, where the consequences for customers can be significant if a product were to fail,” Bennion said.

“It can make it difficult to develop and qualify a product in the first place, but once you have developed a product and demonstrated that it works, customers tend to be risk averse and prefer to continue using solutions they know and trust.

“There are a number of markets that fit that profile. Offshore wind and oil and gas are established examples, while newer and growing markets such as nuclear also present significant opportunities for us.”

AIH has built diversification into the way it does business, from the customers it serves to the products it develops.

Turning that breadth into sustained commercial growth will be the measure of how effectively the strategy delivers.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Advanced Innergy Holdings is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

The post Diversification by design: Advanced Innergy spreads its reach across industries appeared first on Stockhead.