Meta has grand ambitions for artificial intelligence. And as a consequence, they need to ramp up their data centre infrastructure. Now, they want to use geothermal energy as a power source.
What’s happening:
- Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) has partnered with Houston based startup Sage Geosystems to provide low carbon power to their data centres through geothermal energy
The big idea:
- Geothermal energy is one of the most exciting areas of low carbon baseload power, as it is naturally occurring heat located below the Earth’s surface
- However, geothermal energy has mostly been limited to volcanic regions or locations where exceptionally deep drilling is permitted
- Sage Geosystems has developed a potential breakthrough technology based on oilfield operations which enables the production of geothermal energy that is not limited to specific locations and is both sustainable and reliable
Why it matters:
- Geothermal energy has shown enormous potential for producing low carbon power at commercial scale and this new collaboration between Meta and Sage Geothermal represents the first ever use of next generation geothermal power east of the Rocky Mountains
Going deeper:
- Sage Geosystems has existing contracts with the United States Air Force and the United States Army to use geothermal energy as a power source for domestic military operations
- There has been a rapid race to build out data centre infrastructure due to new demand from venture backed artificial intelligence startups, which has led to private asset management giants such as Starwood Capital raising funds specifically for data centre construction and technology giants such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) committing billions of dollars for new data centres globally
The intrigue:
- Meta isn’t the only technology company searching for renewable energy sources to power their data centres, with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) previously acquiring a data centre campus powered entirely by nuclear energy
