GridFree AI: Rethinking Data Center Infrastructure for the AI Era
GridFree AI emerges from stealth with $5M in funding
The world’s appetite for compute shows no signs of slowing down. A 2024 McKinsey & Company report estimates that global demand for data center capacity could more than triple by 2030. That said, bottlenecks in project development prevent supply from fulfilling demand. It can take projects four years or more to connect new developments to power and, with the volume of new data center projects in the queue, utilities cannot keep up with overwhelming requests for power studies and interconnections.
At Montauk Climate, we expect a boom of AI-powered solutions solving challenges within the Electron Economy. All these solutions need access to sustainable and efficient compute now and cannot wait for traditional deployments to catch up. In the Electron Economy age, traditional development must make way for new models that can achieve faster development and scaling of infrastructure.
That’s why, in 2024, Montauk Climate partnered with Ralph Alexander, former Chairman and CEO of Talen Energy and former CEO of BP’s Global Gas, Power, and Renewables unit, and Patrick Yantz, a former Global Edge Operations leader at Microsoft with over 25 years of hands-on experience building and operating hyperscale and modular data center infrastructure, to rethink and accelerate the pace of data center development.
We’re excited to announce that GridFree AI has raised $5M in funding to scale up its Power Foundry™ infrastructure platform, unlocking rapid development and deployment of AI and cloud computing systems. GridFree AI’s innovative Power Foundry™ platform delivers grid-independent power efficiencies of up to 90% relative to ~40% for traditional models.
By seamlessly integrating advanced data center design with reliable, scalable on-site energy, GridFree AI eliminates data center reliance on overburdened grid systems. This allows developments to “skip the queue” and get power without reliance on traditional grid systems, enabling deployments in as short as 18-24 months vs. the industry standard of 3-5 years. The Power Foundry™ platform’s flexibility allows data centers to more easily connect to next-generation energy sources like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) for more diverse and reliable sources of energy.
GridFree AI’s dedicated, scalable on-site power eliminates reliance on overloaded grid infrastructure. By eliminating traditional cooling, battery, and backup generation infrastructure from data center builds, Power Foundry™ reduces data center CAPEX and OPEX by up to 40% while delivering 50% more available power to compute resources. Through all efficiencies achieved, GridFree AI significantly reduces CO₂ emissions per megawatt of compute load, minimizing the climate impact of their data centers.
Thanks to the GridFree AI team for their partnership, as well as to Giant Ventures and Amplo for their support of GridFree AI’s work rethinking data center deployment and operations for the AI age. To learn more and get involved in what GridFree AI is building, reach out to the team here.
