Tekcapital said its portfolio company, Vesari, has appointed a leading US geothermal scientist to its science advisory board in its latest move as the firm prepares for a US capital markets financing round.
The addition comes as the company plans a US RTO or de-SPAC to raise financing to develop its geothermal data centre project. Today’s update did not include further details on the project’s potential financing.
Dr Podgorney is enhanced geothermal systems lead at Idaho National Laboratory and modelling lead for Utah FORGE, the US Department of Energy’s flagship geothermal field laboratory. He is also the lead developer of FALCON, a reservoir simulation code used to model geothermal systems.
“Enhanced geothermal systems have reached the point where clean, firm baseload power can be developed at scale, and AI computing is exactly the kind of demand that justifies building it,” Dr Podgorney said.
“I look forward to serving on Vesari’s advisory board and providing insight into the reservoir engineering and subsurface energy behind Vesari’s geothermal generation layer.”
Vesari is joining a race with relatively few runners to harness the earth’s natural heat sources to produce power for AI compute.
One of the front-runners is Fervo, whose shares popped 35% on the first day of US trading when it listed in May. Fervo, however, is focused on fast geothermal power production rather than building the vertically integrated AI campuses Vesari is.
Another player is Ormat Technologies, which is also focused on geothermal power production, currently valued at $6bn on US exchanges.
Geothermal has recently entered the AI compute conversation as hyperscalers explore innovative ways to secure the electricity they need to power data centres vital for the AI revolution. Geothermal is interesting because it can produce electricity ‘behind-the-meter’ in Vesari’s plans and doesn’t require grid connections – a major bottleneck for other forms of power.