Tags: data center power

Redwood Materials, the battery‑recycling startup founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, has seen its energy‑storage division become its fastest‑growing unit as AI‑driven data centers surge. The company expanded its San Francisco R&D lab four‑fold to a 55,000‑square‑foot facility, now employing nearly 100 staff. A recent $425 million Series E round, led by new investor Google and existing backer Nvidia, will fund further scaling. Early customers include Crusoe, and Redwood is courting hyperscalers for projects measured in hundreds of megawatt‑hours to gigawatt‑hours, positioning the business to meet the massive power needs of modern AI computing. Read more

Peak XV Partners has led a Series A investment in C2i Semiconductors, an Indian startup developing plug‑and‑play, system‑level power solutions for AI data centers. C2i aims to reduce the 15%‑20% energy loss that occurs when high‑voltage power is stepped down to GPUs, potentially cutting overall power consumption by about 10%. The company, founded by former Texas Instruments executives, is preparing its first silicon designs for validation with data‑center operators and hyperscalers. The investment reflects growing concern that power, rather than compute, is becoming the primary constraint on scaling AI infrastructure. Read more