The cloud computing giant partners with materials science startup Orbital to use AI-driven innovation to slash carbon emissions and water usage across its massive data centre network.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Princeton-based Orbital Materials to accelerate the development of sustainable data centre technologies.
The partnership will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the growing environmental impact of cloud computing infrastructure.
The collaboration will focus on integrating Orbital’s proprietary AI-designed materials into AWS data centres to enhance carbon removal capabilities, optimise cooling systems, and improve water utilisation efficiency. Since establishing its advanced materials R&D facility in early 2024, Orbital has already enhanced its materials’ performance tenfold through AI-driven development, significantly outpacing traditional research methods.
This partnership represents a significant shift in how the tech industry approaches environmental challenges. Traditional methods of developing new materials for sustainability applications have relied heavily on time-consuming laboratory trials, often taking years to yield meaningful results. Orbital’s AI-powered approach dramatically accelerates this process, potentially reducing development time from years to months.
“Our partnership with AWS will accelerate the deployment of our advanced technologies for data centre decarbonisation and efficiency,” said Jonathan Godwin, CEO of Orbital Materials. “Working with the market-leading AWS team will accelerate our development of cooling, water utilisation and carbon removal products.”
The collaboration extends beyond just material development. As part of the agreement, AWS will make Orbital’s open-source AI model for materials simulation, ‘Orb’, available to customers through Amazon SageMaker JumpStart and AWS Marketplace. This marks the first AI-for-materials model on AWS platforms, potentially revolutionising how researchers and companies approach sustainable technology development.
Howard Gefen, general manager of AWS Energy & Utilities, emphasised the partnership’s broader implications: “Through Amazon SageMaker HyperPod and AWS Trainium, we can accelerate the development of breakthrough sustainability technologies. By integrating Orb with Amazon SageMaker JumpStart and AWS Marketplace, we will widely enable sustainable innovation.”
The timing of this partnership is crucial as data centres face mounting pressure to reduce their environmental footprint. According to recent industry estimates, data centres consume about 1% of global electricity and are responsible for approximately 0.3% of global carbon emissions. With the rapid growth of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital services, these numbers are projected to rise significantly in the coming years.
Orbital Materials, which launched in late 2022, has quickly established itself as a pioneer in using AI to accelerate the discovery and deployment of climate technologies. The company plans to deploy and test its carbon removal technology by the end of 2025, potentially setting new standards for sustainable data centre operations. This rapid development timeline showcases the transformative potential of AI-driven materials science in addressing urgent environmental challenges.
The partnership also includes plans to evaluate AWS’s custom silicon, Trainium, to improve the cost performance of Orbital’s Deep Learning workloads. This integration demonstrates both companies’ commitment to developing efficient and sustainable solutions for the future of cloud computing while highlighting the potential for AI to optimise its environmental impact.
The implications of this partnership extend beyond just AWS data centres. As one of the world’s biggest cloud providers, with more than 240 fully featured services and operations across 34 geographic regions, AWS’s adoption of these technologies could set new industry standards for sustainable data centre operations. The availability of Orbital’s Orb model on AWS platforms could also catalyze innovation in sustainable materials across various industries.
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