--- title: Andrea Rocchetto: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 description: Find out why Andrea Rocchetto is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. canonical: https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T01:01:18.726Z article:section: Climate og:title: Andrea Rocchetto: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 og:description: Find out why Andrea Rocchetto is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. og:url: https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt65836e4348286185/6998cafa1f67096309f56dc0/Innovators-Andrea-Rocchetto.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Andrea Rocchetto: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Andrea Rocchetto: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 twitter:description: Find out why Andrea Rocchetto is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt65836e4348286185/6998cafa1f67096309f56dc0/Innovators-Andrea-Rocchetto.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 30, 2025 # Andrea Rocchetto CEO, Ephos by [Jay Bouchard](https://time.com/author/jay-bouchard/) ## Jay Bouchard  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) The impact of today’s data-heavy innovations in AI and quantum computing are not unlike those of the technologies that powered the industrial revolution. They will almost certainly change the world, but they’re also heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Andrea Rocchetto, who co-founded [Ephos](https://ephos.io/) in Milan, Italy, is keenly aware of this problem. “We have this new industrial revolution that revolves around data processing,” he says. “We need to make sure the energy sources powering the data centers are clean. We also need to make sure we are not wasting any energy.” Ephos is one of the first companies to make photonic quantum computing chips out of glass; they use light to move and process information with the goal of eliminating energy waste. According to Rocchetto, the glass chips Ephos is designing are about 20 times more efficient than their silicon counterparts that have historically been used in data processing. Plus, they’re more environmentally friendly to produce and easier to recycle. Ephos has garnered serious attention in recent years. In 2023, NATO invested half a million dollars in the company as part of its Defense Innovation Accelerator. In 2024, Rocchetto’s team announced [$8.5 million in seed funding](https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nato-backed-chip-startup-ephos-raises-85-mln-italian-operations-2024-09-23/) and opened its first manufacturing facility in Milan. And in July 2025, the company was awarded a nearly [$50 million grant ](https://ephos.io/newsroom/ephos-secures-e41-5-million-eu-chips-act-grant-to-build-glass-photonic-chips-manufacturing-facility-in-italy/)as part of the European Union Chips Act, which will build a second lab in Milan. Rocchetto knows what he’s designing can help reduce carbon emissions of the technology revolution currently underway, even if Ephos is only a small part of the puzzle. “We’re not a savior. Nobody is, but we all need to do our fair share,” he says. “Decarbonizing is going to be a collective effort, but what we bring to the table is a critical part of the solution.” Rocchetto answered TIME’s survey on the state of the climate movement: **What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government, needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?** The single most important action we need is a cultural shift: We must regain our courage to build. In the 1950s, we could construct a commercial nuclear power plant [in four years](https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/infrastructure-projects/calder-hall-nuclear-power-station#:~:text=Build%20the%20world's%20first%20commercial,electricity%20produced%20by%20nuclear%20power.). Today, it [can take a decade](https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time). We must demand we build again with a sense of urgency. **What is a climate solution that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?** Nuclear fusion is the only energy source that can provide truly abundant, 24/7 clean power without the massive land use of renewables or the long-term waste of nuclear fission. Yet, in 2025, investments in nuclear fusion are still a negligible fraction of global clean energy investments. This is a mistake. **What gives you hope about the future of the planet?** What gives me hope is that human ingenuity now has a powerful new partner: artificial intelligence. AI is a force multiplier for the very science we need, accelerating everything from climate modeling to the development of next-generation clean energy. It dramatically expands our capacity to solve problems and build a more resilient world. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/"},"headline":"Andrea Rocchetto","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:01:18.726Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt65836e4348286185/6998cafa1f67096309f56dc0/Innovators-Andrea-Rocchetto.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jay Bouchard","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jay-bouchard/"}],"creator":"Jay Bouchard","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt65836e4348286185/6998cafa1f67096309f56dc0/Innovators-Andrea-Rocchetto.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326561/andrea-rocchetto/","name":"Andrea Rocchetto"}}]}] ```