Emerald AI, a fast-growing innovator at the intersection of artificial intelligence and energy infrastructure, announced that it has raised an additional $18 million in seed extension funding, bringing its total funding to $42.5 million. The new capital will accelerate the company’s mission to transform AI data centers into flexible grid assets that can dynamically adjust their energy use to support grid stability and resilience.
The latest funding round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Radical Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, National Grid Partners, Amplo Ventures, Earthshot Ventures, Founders You Should Know Fund, Trust Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Chairman John Doerr.
Emerald AI was founded in November 2024 with the vision of solving one of AI’s most pressing challenges: energy constraints. As hyperscalers exhaust traditional power siting options, energy has emerged as a critical bottleneck for AI’s continued growth. Emerald AI’s platform enables AI data centers to become active participants in the energy ecosystem, balancing loads, relieving grid stress, and unlocking new capacity without requiring the construction of additional power plants.
Over the past year, Emerald AI has rapidly evolved from concept to commercialization. In May 2025, the company completed its first commercial demonstration in Arizona, demonstrating its ability to flexibly adjust AI demand in real-time to alleviate grid strain, with results accepted for publication in a top-tier scientific journal. By July 2025, the company’s work was recognized at the national level when Emerald AI joined President Trump and Senator Dave McCormick at the Pittsburgh Energy and AI Summit to discuss solutions for expanding AI investments through grid optimization.
In September 2025, Emerald AI announced an international partnership with National Grid to conduct the United Kingdom’s first live trial of power-flexible data center technology. The trial will utilize Emerald’s Conductor platform and NVIDIA accelerated computing to manage energy consumption while maintaining high AI performance standards dynamically.
In October 2025, Emerald AI partnered with NVIDIA, EPRI, Digital Realty, and PJM on the 96MW Aurora AI Factory in Virginia. The facility serves as a new reference model for power-flexible AI infrastructure, building upon Emerald’s collaboration with NVIDIA on the Omniverse DSX Blueprint—a system designed to optimize gigawatt-scale AI Factories for grid resilience and efficiency.
Through its breakthroughs in AI-energy integration, Emerald AI envisions a future where AI data centers and power grids work in collaboration rather than competition. The company aims to enable a more affordable, reliable power system that fuels AI innovation across the U.S. and allied markets such as the United Kingdom. With strong investor backing, commercial traction, and an expanding global footprint, Emerald AI is positioned to lead this energy-aware evolution in AI infrastructure.
KEY QUOTES:
“The conversation around AI and energy has fundamentally changed. The ‘easy’ power is gone, as hyperscalers have run through all the obvious places to site new load, and the former coal plants and industrial sites with interconnection have been scooped up. Energy has emerged as the single greatest bottleneck to the AI revolution. This has forced a reckoning, and the industry is now embracing the very solution we founded Emerald AI to build eleven months ago: turning AI data centers themselves into flexible grid assets.”
“After 15 years in the energy sector building large-scale, multibillion-dollar energy projects, I realized the old playbook of only building more supply couldn’t work on its own. But what if we could make energy demand smarter? What if AI itself could be the key to solving its own energy crisis and unleashing 100GW of capacity available right now to power AI?”
“We’ve spent the last year building the pioneering technology to do just that, preparing for the moment when the industry would be ready. That moment is here—and we are perfectly poised to meet it.”
“We’re grateful for this rocket fuel. The pace at which the team has moved from vision to validation has been breathtaking.”
“As AI’s energy needs soar, two potential futures emerge. In the grim version, AI data centers and power grids are adversaries. Power costs skyrocket, blackouts rise, and America’s AI competitiveness stalls. But there’s a brighter future featuring breakneck AI innovation that doesn’t break the grid.”
“AI data centers can deliver the economic development and grid-friendly support that communities and power utilities compete to attract. As a result, the power system becomes more affordable and more reliable, not less. And America and our allies such as the United Kingdom can accelerate trillions in AI investments, supporting decades of continued innovation.”
“Our journey over the last year—from our first demo to helping design the reference architecture for the industry—proves this bright future is within our grasp. We are poised to seize this opportunity with a strong capital base, a world-class team, unmatched partners, and real commercial traction.”
Emerald AI Founder and CEO Varun Sivaram
