A startup company led by former executives with major technology and energy groups is betting on the use of natural gas and battery energy storage to provide data centers with on-site power, freeing those sites from reliance on the traditional power grid.
GridFree AI came out of stealth mode on June 2 with a $5-million funding round led by Giant Ventures, a UK-based investment group, and participation by Amplo. The Axios news service on Monday said GridFree AI, part of what it called “electron economy” incubator Montauk Climate, would introduce a modular, off-grid “power foundry” concept that integrates gas power, battery energy storage, and cooling with computing infrastructure.
GridFree AI was co-founded by Ralph Alexander, former president, CEO, and chairman of Talen Energy. Alexander also served in various roles with oil and gas major BP. GridFree AI co-founder Patrick Yantz led Microsoft’s data center efforts, and was global leader of Edge Site Operations, a group known for its work in the data center industry.
GridFree AI in a Monday news release said its Power Foundry platform “seamlessly integrates grid-independent power, battery storage, and cooling with data center infrastructure. This groundbreaking approach facilitates the rapid global expansion of AI [artificial intelligence] and cloud computing systems, enabling the deployment of computing resources in previously inaccessible locations. The initial selected sites are situated in jurisdictions with favorable regulations, abundant natural gas, land, and fiber, all within proximity to carbon storage infrastructure to support net-zero operations.”
Alexander told Axios his company’s work is “systematic, repeatable, and becomes a manufacturing process, not a stick-built process.” The news service said the technology “dramatically” reduces development timelines for data centers, which would enable hyperscalers to more quickly generate revenue from their operations. Axios wrote that GridFree AI’s leaders “envision additive units to match various computing needs and their growth, with multiple gigawatts of scale possible,” and quoted Alexander as comparing the technology to a “Lego set that you just continue to connect.”
Want to learn more about artificial intelligence in the power industry, and how energy demand from data centers is impacting electric utilities and the power generation sector? Register to attend POWER’s Data Center POWER eXchange event, set for Oct. 28 in Denver, Colorado.
Yantz in a statement said, “Our team unites the strengths of critical industries striving to address AI growth challenges to provide the comprehensive solutions our customers need. Our Power Foundry brings proven power and cooling industrialization and scale to the data center industry with unparalleled efficiency while maintaining familiar reliability and resiliency. This marks a new era for computing infrastructure, and we’re proud to lead the way.”
Race to Scale AI
Philip Krim, co-founder and CEO of Montauk Climate, said, “At Montauk Climate, we recognize that the race to scale AI is ultimately a race to deliver the energy and infrastructure that powers it. We supported GridFree AI because their breakthrough platform combining advanced energy technologies with rapid, modular deployment meets the unprecedented demand for computing capacity. By uniting proven leaders from technology and energy, GridFree AI is uniquely positioned to deliver pragmatic, scalable solutions that enable AI’s growth.”
GridFree AI in its Monday news release wrote: “The Power Foundry platform accelerates compute revenue by 3-5 years vs. the grid. The platform is designed to deliver grid-independent computing infrastructure by converting natural gas into electricity and cooling with upwards of 90% efficiency, far surpassing 36% from the grid. Unlike the grid, Power Foundry delivers constant power and simplifies the building and maintenance of data centers, resulting in a one-third reduction in CAPEX and OPEX through the elimination of legacy infrastructure. The efficiency of the overall solution enables a 50% increase in available power for IT loads, enabling the deployment of more computing capacity and increasing the revenue potential of each data center. The platform is designed for flexibility, supporting both greenfield sites and expansions in areas with unreliable grid access, and is engineered for future integration with next-generation energy sources such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).”
Axios said advisers to GridFree AI include Gary Wojtaszek, former CEO of data center solutions provider CyrusOne, and Tim Duncan, former CEO of oil and gas major Talos Energy. The news service reported that GridFree AI has identified sites in the U.S. Southeast “that have gas access, fiber-optic connectivity, favorable regulations, and access to sequestration infrastructure if CO2 capture is ever integrated.”
Tommy Stadlen, founding partner at Giant Ventures, said, “GridFree AI enables the century’s two great megatrends—AI and energy efficiency. U.S. energy demand is surging for the first time in two decades. We urgently need energy efficient data centers that can roll out radically faster if the West is to win in the AI era. That’s why we’ve backed this uniquely experienced founding team.”
Data center developers are looking at various technologies to power their energy-intensive operations, including nuclear power and natural gas-fired power plants. Some utilities also plan to keep coal-fired power plants online to help support data center power demand.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
