Amazon Data Centres to Use AI-Designed Carbon Removal 'Sponge'

Amazon is planning to deploy a new material capable of removing carbon at its data centres, amid increasing concerns of rising emissions from artificial intelligence-related infrastructure.

The material has been designed and improved upon by AI itself — a development Amazon described as “breaking new ground in carbon removal efficacy” in a press release.

The carbon-filtering substance is “like a sponge at the atomic level,” said Jonathan Godwin, chief executive of climate technology startup Orbital Materials, which developed the material.

Also on AF: Saudi, Oil Producing States Block Hopes for UN Plastics Treaty

“Each cavity in that sponge has a specific size opening that interacts well with CO2, that doesn’t interact with other things,” Godwin said.

Amazon’s web services unit, AWS, will deploy the novel material in one data centre to start in 2025, as part of a three-year partnership with Orbital.

Orbital uses an open-source AI model to simulate advanced materials.

“Developing new advanced materials has traditionally been a slow process of trial and error in the lab. Orbital replaces this with generative AI design, radically improving the speed and efficacy of materials discovery and new technology commercialisation,” Amazon said in its press release.

It said the carbon ‘sponge’ utilises a proprietary active material, which Orbital has improved 10x using AI, since beginning work in just the first quarter of 2024.

That’s “an order of magnitude faster than traditional development,” Amazon said.

Race to net zero

Data centres are requiring increasing amounts of energy to sustain AI’s development and more water to keep them cool. That poses a challenge to companies like Amazon, which has committed to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Meanwhile, using the new material would also present some cost benefits for Amazon. It adds up to an estimated 10% of the hourly charge to rent a GPU chip for training powerful AI. That’s only a fraction of the price of purchasing carbon offsets, Godwin said.

Amazon and Orbital did not state the financial terms of the arrangement.

But Amazon said the deal would include providing AWS customers working on advanced materials and technologies, like semiconductors, batteries, and electronics access to Orbital’s AI model.

AWS will also work with Orbital “to design, synthesise and test new technologies and advanced materials for data centre-integrated carbon removal, chip cooling and water utilisation.”

Reuters, with additional editing and inputs from Vishakha Saxena

Vishakha Saxena

Vishakha Saxena is the Multimedia and Social Media Editor at Asia Financial. She has worked as a digital journalist since 2013, and is an experienced writer and multimedia producer. As a trader and investor, she is keenly interested in new economy, emerging markets and the intersections of finance and society. You can write to her at [email protected]