Orbital And Civo Partner For Carbon Removal In Data Centers

In a first-of-its-kind effort to decarbonize the digital infrastructure industry, cloud hosting company Civo and Orbital Materials have entered into a strategic alliance to pilot a revolutionary carbon removal system in the UK. The AI-based system, created by Orbital, is set to be trialed at Civo's UK data center by the end of 2025, a key milestone in curbing the rising emissions from data centers globally.

Data centers, the online infrastructure's digital backbone, today account for only about 1% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Yet Morgan Stanley's projections have that increasing to 2.5 billion tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions by 2030 if left unchecked. The spike highlights the imperative to leapfrog better technologies to limit the sector's environmental footprint. The partnership between Orbital and Civo is a straight answer to this challenge by combining state-of-the-art AI-fortified material science with green computing infrastructure.

Orbital Materials has been making headlines with its disruptive method of designing materials through the use of proprietary AI platforms that have already seen a tenfold increase in the effectiveness of carbon capture materials. Historically, creating such materials would take years, possibly decades. But thanks to Orbital's cutting-edge AI capabilities, the timeline has been significantly shortned, speeding up both innovation and implementation. This quick pace is especially important as it provides a scalable and timely fix to one of the most urgent environmental problems confronting the technology sector today.

Civo's UK data center will provide the real-world testing ground for Orbital's in-house-built carbon removal system. The deployment is not just a technological breakthrough but also a potent statement of intent to power sustainability in an industry that has made its reputation with energy use and emissions. Through the integration of the system in a live data center environment, the collaboration intends to test the effectiveness and scalability of Orbital's technology under real operating conditions.

Jonathan Godwin, Orbital CEO and Co-Founder, highlighted the strategic significance of this partnership. "We are thrilled to be working with Civo to implement our carbon removal technology for data centers that will enable the data center sector to move towards a cleaner future. Our collaboration with Civo will drive the growth of our data center decarbonization and efficiency technologies," he said.

The announcement also coincides with the UK government putting greater focus on AI and sustainability, as seen in the recent publication of the AI Opportunities Action Plan. This convergence with national policy further enhances the significance and potential influence of the Orbital-Civo initiative.

To facilitate the continuing development and training of its AI models, Orbital will also receive use of a high-performance compute cluster from Civo, with H200 NVIDIA GPUs. This will increase Orbital's ability to tune its material science models, strengthening the research, development, and application feedback loop.

Mark Boost, CEO of Civo, expressed his enthusiasm for the agreement, remarking on Orbital's creative solution. We are excited to join forces with Orbital Materials, a leader in sustainable materials and technologies. By working together, we can make a meaningful contribution to lowering carbon emissions and accelerating a more sustainable future for our world.". With increased investment in UK data centers and the UK government's AI action plan, we need to roll out solutions today to minimize the environmental footprint of the UK's increasing data center capacity," he said.

The partnership also leverages Orbital's own momentum in recent months, since inking a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), raising investment from NVentures, the venture capital division of NVIDIA, and announcing "Orb," an open-source artificial intelligence model aiming to speed up the development of next-generation materials. Orbital's advanced materials laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, remains focused on applications beyond carbon capture, such as semiconductors, batteries, and catalysts, all powered by AI.

As the digital world continues to grow, partnerships like that of Orbital and Civo demonstrate the potential of combining sustainability goals with innovative technology. If successful, the pilot could pave the way for large-scale deployment of carbon removal systems across data centers globally, offering a viable path toward net-zero emissions in a critical, high-growth industry.