Emerald AI Raises $150M at $1.05B to Turn AI Data Centres Into Grid Allies

Emerald AI, a startup that helps AI data centres reduce or shift their power consumption when the grid is under stress, has raised $150 million in its oversubscribed Series A round at a $1.05 billion valuation.

Energize Capital and DCVC jointly led the round, with several financial and strategic investors also participating. The round also included NVIDIA, Samsung Ventures, Siemens, Aramco Ventures, RWE, JERA Ventures, ADVentures, Sabanci Climate Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Emerson Collective, The Olayan Group, Temerty Group, Earthshot Ventures, Collective Global Management, General Catalyst’s scout fund, and others.

Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO of Emerald AI, said, “We founded Emerald AI on the conviction that the intelligence driving the AI revolution could solve its own greatest bottleneck. Our demonstrations around the world proved that data centers can adjust their power use precisely when the grid needs relief, without compromising critical computing workloads. Today that technology runs commercially at full data centre scale, and this financing lets us take it everywhere AI is built.”

Over the past year, investor interest in AI infrastructure startups has increased as technology companies have expanded their data centre capacity, which in turn has led to higher valuations and accelerated funding for companies addressing issues such as power availability.

Morgan Stanley expects global electricity demand to rise by over 1 trillion kWh each year by 2030, with data centres accounting for nearly 20% of that increase, according to the firm’s energy market outlook. Emerald AI’s own figures, drawn from the International Energy Agency, put data centres at nearly half of U.S. electricity demand growth through 2030.

Over the past year, Emerald AI has completed five demonstrations at commercial data centres in Arizona, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, and London, in partnership with Nvidia, EPRI, Oracle, Nebius, and National Grid. It has since moved into commercial scaling, deploying across an entire data centre in California, where it sustained grid-responsive power flexibility during peak grid strain.

Instead of considering the power supply as the flexible resource, Emerald AI’s approach is more focused and tailored to AI, treating the computing power within a data centre as the flexible asset.

The company states that it will put the new funds towards expanding its commercial operations worldwide, and that its customer base consists of AI companies, data centre operators and electric utilities.

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