Data centers contribute to the global energy consumption crisis, relying on fossil fuels to power artificial intelligence systems and maintain cooling. However, one startup claims to have a solution by transforming waste heat into usable electricity through an innovative carbon-removal material it has developed. Orbital Materials Inc. has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to pilot this new material, which could significantly reduce the energy demands of data centers, providing hope in the fight against the energy crisis. The companies also revealed on Monday that they will collaborate on a research project to test additional materials and solutions from Orbital Technologies.
Orbital’s technology is based on a proprietary active material being developed in the company’s lab in Princeton, NJ. It uses an AI system, dubbed LINUS, to design, simulate, and test new advanced materials and nascent technologies. This innovative approach, using AI to improve its first material by a factor of 10 since the company set up the lab in early 2024, is both inspiring and intriguing.
The 20-person company is backed by investors, including Radical Ventures and Nvidia’s NVDA venture arm. It focuses on the “green chemistry” of materials, a field boosted by advances in artificial intelligence. Green chemistry is a branch of chemistry focused on the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances. AI has proven extremely good at finding and studying the properties of new materials, making it a valuable tool in the field of green chemistry.
Teams are using that capability to search for new materials that could improve batteries, semiconductors, and other electronics. Companies such as Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft, and Meta are among the leaders in this area of materials science.
However, the problem with these efforts is that they only find substances that might exist. A way still needs to be found to turn those possibilities into cost-effective and feasible materials, which must then be tested to ensure they work.
Orbital is working to speed up the development of new materials. It is releasing an open-source AI model that it says is more accurate than models from Google and Microsoft. This model, available through AWS’s SageMaker JumpStart cloud environment, is a powerful tool that can be used to design, simulate, and test new materials, potentially accelerating the development of sustainable solutions in various industries.
Despite the hyperscaler triumvirate of Amazon, Alphabet Inc’s Google, and Microsoft Corp declaring themselves paragons of environmental responsibility, many critics remain unconvinced. Some say that the ad-driven AI algorithms underlying their products are accelerating the global overconsumption crisis that is destroying Earth’s climate. Others want much tighter quality controls and a broader public consultation process before companies can build new data centers.
