AI-driven demand for electricity is soaring that some big tech companies are at risk of falling short of their climate commitments. But Amazon is partnering with AI startup Orbital to test new materials that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, using AWS data centers as its initial location.
One of the biggest costs of carbon capture is generating sufficient airflow for the adsorbent to capture meaningful amounts of carbon dioxide. Data centers appear to be the perfect place to deploy such technology, as cooling systems move large volumes of air to keep thousands of servers running at optimal temperatures.
Orbital Materials' deal with AWS will place its materials in an as-yet-unnamed data center. In this setup, more carbon dioxide must be removed than the electricity used in the data center, and the additional cost of materials must be much lower than the price of carbon offsets.
The startup specializes in designing advanced materials using AI. Orbital's models can produce a variety of conceivable materials, including those for batteries, semiconductors, and other electronic devices. But for now, it's focused on carbon capture. The materials that AWS will use are specifically designed to work with hot air from data centers. The company declined to disclose further details about the proprietary compound.
Orbital isn't the first company to combine carbon capture with a data center. Alphabet and Meta both hold patents related to this technology, and startup 280 Earth is working on the issue as well.
So why aren't all new data centers equipped to capture carbon? First, it's not free. Of course there are materials costs, and any filtration system increases the resistance in the cooling system, increasing the amount of energy required to operate. Next, companies need to think about what to do with the carbon they capture. All of these costs must be lower than the carbon offsets that companies can purchase on the open market.
However, if costs are low enough, on-site carbon capture is attractive for several reasons. First, as is often the case in carbon markets, there are no middlemen who take a cut. Additionally, it is much easier to see how much carbon is captured. And if a data center ends up capturing more carbon than it produces, Amazon and other companies can sell the credits themselves and turn the system into a profit center.