It was hard to glance through the tech headlines this week and not read something about the billions of dollars being invested in data centers.
The world’s largest asset manager, Blackstone Group, apparently plans to take a position $8.2 billion in the development of data centers in Spain. Energy and data center company Crusoe’s energy systems announced that it has raised $3.4 billion in debt financing – i apparently will raise additional capital investment under the leadership Founders Fund — for the Texas data center that will be used OpenAI. And the pension fund AustralianSuper announced that it has committed $1.5 billion to turn out to be a minority owner in Data Bankprovider of enterprise-class data centers in North America.
Of course, this is all just happening this week and doesn’t even touch on that fact Amazon plans to take a position $100 billion in AI data centers in the next decade, nor the planned OpenAI and Microsoft i.e. a joint data center project is expected to cost $100 billion.
This increased level of investment appears to be beginning to trickle down into the startup sphere. So far this 12 months, $1.3 billion has been invested in database startups – those who provide connectivity, performance or other needed tools/solutions for hubs – in accordance with Crunchbase data.
The raises contributed by data center startups this 12 months already almost match the amount raised in 2023, and if the last two and a half months of the 12 months are good, they might even reach the almost $1.9 billion that similar startups received in 2022
Of course, this week helped a lot, including: Light matter blocking the $400 million Series D led by a latest investor T. Rowe Price at a valuation of $4.4 billion. The startup uses light to attach chips together and perform calculations for deep learning vital for artificial intelligence.
He saw the week too Xscape Photonics — a startup that also uses photonics technology to handle the energy, efficiency and scalability challenges of AI data centers — raised $44 million in Series A led by IAG Capital Partners and because of investments from firms comparable to Cisco investments AND Nvidia.
It looks as if it should only be a matter of time before much more rounds are announced in similar data center startups as Big Tech pumps billions into latest data centers needed to maintain its AI guarantees alive. These centers will need latest innovations – especially when it involves solving energy consumption – and Big Tech and VCs are prone to emerge there to supply the money needed to develop these latest technologies.
Things that caught our eye and more:
- The Xscape raise wasn’t the only round that piqued our interest this week. Path roboticsa startup that uses artificial intelligence in robotic welding systems in the manufacturing industry, announced that it closed $100 million in latest investments last 12 months, led by Capital drive AND Matter enterprise partners. The Columbus, Ohio-based company currently offers two robotic welding products on the market, each using vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning to autonomously weld steel parts. Founded in 2018, Path has raised $170 million for the company.