It’s not just you: restaurants, malls and offices in sweltering summers are kept colder than necessary. Air conditioning is as much about dehumidifying as cooling, especially in hot, humid climates like the U.S. South, where buildings can be fertile ground for hazardous moulds.

The reason they blast the air conditioner so much is to reduce humidity. In some cases, the air is so cold that it has to be reheated back up. So Transaera has developed a new type of ventilation unit that is significantly more efficient than existing dehumidification techniques, saving users energy and money.

Amazon, which has been testing the unit for several months in Houston, recently signed on as a customer. Other companies are following suit, to the point where Transaera now has 'nine figures' worth of purchasing targets from customers, Grama said. For Amazon, the purchase reserves capacity over the next three years.

The device, known as a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS), can keep the air inside commercial buildings fresh while also lightening the load on the AC. It can remove 100 pounds of water from the air every hour, meaning the AC doesn’t have to run as hard.

Transaera’s secret sauce is a desiccant that coats a six-foot wheel which slowly spins inside each of its units. The company won’t disclose the specific desiccant, but it's based on materials that won its discoverers a Nobel Prize in 2025. As air passes into the unit, the desiccant draws moisture out of the air, which then passes through a heat exchanger before being dispersed into the building.