Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy bets these 21 startups will shape energy’s future
While the world is focused on the power demands of AI data centers, the folks at Breakthrough Energy are paying attention, but not for the reasons you might think.
“Data centers are a 10% bump against basically flat demand for electricity over the last 30 years. So it looks like a big bump, but data centers are absolutely the canary in the coal mine,” Eric Toone, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, told TechCrunch. “You’re chasing a coming massive increase in demand for electricity.”
That demand is forecast to surge as countries electrify entire sectors of their economies to rein in carbon emissions. “Electrifying everything implies a 3x increase in demand for electricity,” Toone said.
In other words, the coming decades will make today’s scramble for power seem quaint by comparison.
To help prepare for that future, Breakthrough Energy has spent the last several years supporting a handful of early...
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