Sakuu Blog
Manufacturing Intelligence for Artificial Intelligence
The age of AI is here, and so is the age of Intelligent Energy Manufacturing.
Everywhere you look, AI is driving data center demand. According to JLL, the real estate and investment management company, “nearly 100 GW of new data centers will be added between 2026 and 2030, doubling global capacity. The global data center sector will likely expand at a 14% CAGR through 2030,” which will require intelligent energy innovations to alleviate grid constraints. The firm further projects that the sector is experiencing an infrastructure investment supercycle requiring up to $3 trillion over the next four years.
At the same time, an AI data center backlash is growing, fueled by community concerns about impacts on local grids, electricity prices, water use, and the environment.
It is absolutely true that AI data center growth creates a power-delivery bottleneck. Where new AI data centers are being developed, local grids are best protected with the installation of more resilient and elastic energy supply for load balancing (as opposed to simply tapping into and overburdening the local utility’s existing infrastructure).
As I’ve written before, highly dynamic AI load profiles typically require a significant share of power to be routed through batteries and supercapacitors anyway, so there is a pressing need for more of both. And the dramatic increase of AI server power requires the installation of energy storage as close to the servers as possible to avoid costly copper wiring and transfer losses.
Addressing valid NIMBY concerns
But simply ramping up traditional battery and supercapacitor production and installing more battery energy storage systems (BESS) for AI data centers does not address all of the negatives for communities, such as sustainability issues surrounding cooling requirements and water use, or the risk of thermal runaway events in battery packs resulting in rare but devastating fires.
These concerns need to be addressed upfront — and fast — for data center buildout development efforts to turn a rising tide of resistance, gain community support, and succeed at the necessary scale in the US and and everywhere else.
And it is also absolutely true that most of them can be directly addressed by simply changing the way energy storage is manufactured.
An existential issue for energy storage manufacturers
This moment of truth may finally force a mass battery manufacturing upgrade for the 21st century. The ability to manufacture safer batteries at scale is essential to meeting surging demand across industries, not just for AI data centers. Yet battery manufacturing technology has been stuck in a rut for 30 years — and everyone in the business knows it.
Traditional wet-process battery production must be phased out. It is wasteful and toxic, and cannot produce batteries that meet the needs of both industry and communities where AI data center installations are concerned.
This is an existential issue for energy storage manufacturers who need to ensure profitability while facing the inevitable transition. Only dry-process additive manufacturing can produce battery cells inherently immune to thermal runaway. Only dry-process manufacturing can accommodate the chemistries, cell structures, designs, and sustainability constraints of the new age.
The Sakuu solution
For AI data centers, Sakuu’s polymeric current collector (PCC) technology and Kavian® dry-printing manufacturing process enable inherently safe batteries and supercapacitors tailored for rack integration close to the server, with much higher pack energy density, lower resistance, and lower heat generation (meaning less need for cooling).
For the battery manufacturers supplying those data centers, Sakuu’s process and platform save CapEx for footprint, wiring, safety, energy storage hardware, and energy storage cooling. OpEx is reduced for maintenance, liability, cooling resources, and power — supplying 21st century energy manufacturers with:
- 100% elimination of toxic solvents and water
- 60% potential overall manufacturing cost reduction
- 50% smaller factory footprint
- 55% reduction of CO2 emissions
- 40% potential lower energy consumption
- 30% potential lower operating costs
- 20% potential reduction in capital equipment costs
- Less than 1% waste
The age of AI isn’t some futuristic science fiction fantasy. It’s here; it’s now. Let’s leave the 1990s behind and power it with today’s intelligent technology.