DESIGN & BUILD
AI is putting data centres at the heart of a new infrastructure race. As operators add more capacity, pressure is rapidly growing around power, cooling, emissions and sustainable materials.
Now, a coalition led by Elemental Impact wants to use that expansion to test emerging technologies inside live data centre environments. The nonprofit investor has launched its Data Center Innovation Initiative( DCII) with support from Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, alongside philanthropic organisations including Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Builders Vision Philanthropy, Salesforce and the Stolte Family Foundation. The initiative focuses on helping startups move technologies from development into deployment.
DCII targets start-ups Elemental Impact says the DCII will invest between US $ 500,000 and US $ 5m in up to 10 start-ups through 2027, focusing on technologies linked to energy, cooling, electrical systems and construction materials.
The programme aims to establish data centres as testing grounds for technologies that could later spread into wider industrial and energy systems.“ We see this historic buildout of data centres as a way to pull forward important innovations that we’ ve been investing in for many years – across energy, materials and water,” says Dawn Lippert, CEO and Founder of Elemental Impact.
96 August 2026