Data center power startup Emerald AI raises $150M at $1.05B valuation

INFRA

Data center power startup Emerald AI Inc. today said that it has raised $150 million in new funding in an oversubscribed round at a valuation of $1.05 billion.

Emerald will put the money into scaling up commercial deployments worldwide. The company’s core product, called Emerald Conductor, is software that schedules artificial intelligence workloads against the batteries and generation available onsite.

Power draw at the facility comes down when the local system is stressed, and critical training and inference jobs keep running. The utility, in effect, gets a site it can dispatch like a generator.

New transmission needs a decade of permitting and construction, and AI data centers are not waiting. The International Energy Agency expects the sector to drive nearly half of U.S. electricity demand growth through 2030. Emerald estimates that flexible operation could unlock more than 100 gigawatts of capacity on the existing U.S. system, years before new construction could deliver it.

Emerald spent the past year running five demonstrations on live commercial load, at sites in Arizona, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon and London. Partners included Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp. and National Grid plc, plus regional utilities and grid operators.

Founder and Chief Executive Varun Sivaram said the demonstrations showed data centers can “adjust their power use precisely when the grid needs relief, without compromising critical computing workloads.” That technology now runs commercially at full data center scale, he said in the funding release.

Commercial deployment followed in California, where a data center flexed its entire load during a stretch of peak demand. Utilities, AI companies and data center operators are on the customer list now. Emerald has more large installations due before the end of the year.

Silicon Valley Power, the municipal utility serving Santa Clara, California, has set up a Flexible Load Interconnection Program with Emerald. Data centers that commit to verified, dispatchable flexibility get faster and larger interconnection under it.

A bigger test is coming in Manassas, Virginia. Emerald is working there with Digital Realty Trust Inc. and Nvidia on the nearly 100-megawatt Vera Rubin AI Research Factory, due online later this year. Dominion Energy Inc., PJM Interconnection and the Electric Power Research Institute are helping run the tests.

Energize Capital and DCVC co-led the Series A round. The investor list runs to Nvidia, Samsung Ventures, Siemens AG, GE Vernova Inc., RWE AG, Aramco Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, JERA Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Radical Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, Emerson Collective, Earthshot Ventures and General Catalyst’s scout fund.

John Doerr and Tom Steyer invested as individuals. Twelve of the backers are Fortune Global 500 companies, all of them on a strategic advisory board that works with Emerald on product integration.

Emerald launched publicly in July 2025 out of Washington, D.C. Investors have now put more than $220 million into the company.

Photo: Emerald AI