Two years ago, I asked the president of one of America’s largest public power utilities what worried him about the data centers lining up to connect to the grid. Each wanted the same thing, he replied: electricity delivered immediately, on an expensive grid overbuilt to guarantee power around the clock. He remarked that utilities and communities were asked to serve as “foot soldiers” of the AI buildout. The data centers, I thought, could serve as foot soldiers in their own way.
I founded Emerald AI after that conversation to enable data centers to support the grid and their local communities, easing power use in the rare hours when the grid is stressed while protecting the performance of critical AI work. By flexibly consuming energy, AI data centers could become good citizens of the power grid, protecting energy affordability and reducing the risk of blackouts for communities. What’s more, America can connect flexible AI data centers much more quickly to the power grid, advancing U.S. competitiveness with China in AI frontier innovation.
