Hypersscaler and data center developers are in a pickle: they all want to add computing power tomorrow, but often work hard to get utilities, waiting for years longer for grid connections.
Gridcare founder and CEO Amit Narayan said, “All AI data centers are struggling to join.” “They are very desperate. They are looking for a solution, which may or may not happen. Certainly they do not cite within a five -year deadline.”
This has inspired many data centers to pursue “behind the meter” power sources – basically, they build their own power plants, an expensive effort that indicates how desperate they are for electricity.
But Narayan knew that there was a lot of dull in the system, even though the utilities had not discovered themselves yet. He has studied the grid for the last 15 years, first as a Stanford researcher as the founder of another company. “How do we create more capacity when everyone thinks that there is no ability on the grid?” He said.
Narayan said that the gridcare, who is working secretly, has already discovered several places where additional capacity exists, and it is ready to play a matchmaker between data centers and utilities.
Gridcare recently shut down an oversbard $ 13.5 million seed round, the company told Techcrunch. The round was headed by Zora, Temasek’s deep tech venture firm, which included ACCLIMATE VENTURES, AINA Climate AI Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Clearvision, Clockever Ventures, Overcher Ventures, Sherplo Ventures and Vornierth.
For Narayan and his colleagues in the gridcare, the first step to find unused ability was to map the existing grid. Then the company used generic AI to help in the coming years, which changes can be implemented in the coming years. It also includes layers on other details, including fiber optic connections, natural gas, water, extreme weather, permission and availability of community spirit around data center construction and expansion.
Narayan said, “There are more than 200,000 scenario that you have to consider this study every time.”
To ensure that it is not moving away from the rules, the gridcare then takes the data and weighs it against the federal guidelines that determine the use of the grid. Once it is found a place, it starts talking with the relevant utility to verify the data.
Narayan said, “We will know where the maximum explosion for the deer is.”
At the same time, the gridcare works with hypersscalers and data center developers to find out where they are looking to expand operation or make new. “They have already told us what they are ready to do. We know the criteria under which they can work,” he said.
Only then matchmaking starts.
The gridcare data center sells its services to the developers, charging them on the basis of how many megawatts can unlock the startup for them. “This fee is important for us, but it is negligible for data centers,” Narayan said.
For some data centers, the price of entry may be here for a few hours and there for grid power, instead relying on on-site backup power. For others, the path may be clear if their demand helps in green-light to a new grid-scale battery installation nearby. In the future, the winner can be the developer who is willing to pay more. Utilities have already contacted the gridcare, which is inquiring about access to new capacity.
No matter what it is, Narayan feels that the gridcare can unlock more than 100 gigawatt capacity using its approach. “We do not need to solve nuclear fusion to do so,” he said.
Update: Right the spare capacity on the grid from megawatt to gigawatt.