Exowatt Wants to Fix the AI Power Conundum With Millions of Hot Rocks

Exowatt believes it's struck upon a red-hot way to fuel all the world's new AI data center projects with affordable, scalable, and sustainable power: hot rocks. The technique leverages concentrated solar power (or thermal solar power), which is directed at extreme intensity onto bricks of material that can absorb and retain heat energy for extended periods. That heat is then used to power a Stirling engine, which generates the electricity.

"We went through all sorts of configurations and designs," Hannan Happi, co-founder and CEO of Exowatt, told TechCrunch. "They all look different from each other. We tried to learn from everyone one of them: How do I reduce structural costs? How do I reduce maintenance costs? How do I optimize for this?"

The ultimate product design that Exowatt settled on as a scalable solution was a shipping container box. The box features a clear plastic roof composed of ...