Data centers worldwide are facing unprecedented difficulty connecting to the electrical grid due to extended waiting periods declared by utilities, often stretching several years. With soaring demand for AI-driven computing facilities, hyperscalers and data center operators find themselves increasingly desperate for immediate solutions, some even resorting to constructing costly onsite power plants—a costly investment demonstrating the severity of these constraints.
Gridcare, a startup led by founder and CEO Amit Narayan, believes it has an alternative answer. Dedicated to identifying unused capacity within existing electrical grid infrastructure, the company claims it has already located significant volumes of unused electricity—more than 100 megawatts—waiting to be harnessed for data center operations. Recently emerging from stealth mode, Gridcare secured a seed funding round of $13.5 million. The fundraising was led by Xora, Temasek’s deep-tech venture arm, with additional investors including Acclimate Ventures, Aina Climate AI Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Clearvision, Clocktower Ventures, Overture Ventures, Sherpalo Ventures, and WovenEarth.
The firm’s strategy involves an innovative mapping process combined with generative AI technologies, enabling detailed modeling of hundreds of thousands of potential scenarios across grid development forecasts. This sophisticated approach takes into consideration essential variables such as fiber optic availability, natural gas connectivity, water sources, weather extremes, permitting hurdles, and local community attitudes toward infrastructure expansion.
Prior to finalizing any partnership, Gridcare ensures its findings align strictly with federal grid management regulations. Once validated, Gridcare facilitates dialogue between interested utilities and potential data center customers, matching existing hidden capacities with precise demand profiles. The startup charges data center clients based upon the volume of capacity it successfully uncovers—an amount CEO Narayan describes as meaningful revenue for a new venture but insignificant relative to overall data center construction costs.
According to Narayan, integrating this undiscovered capacity into operational usage can sometimes mean accepting periodic, brief interruptions of grid-supplied power or encouraging installation of nearby grid-scale battery solutions. Moving forward, Narayan sees the possibility of competitive auctions by utilities interested in rewarding developers willing to pay higher premiums for quicker grid access.
Gridcare’s team is confident that unlocking overlooked electrical capacity does not require groundbreaking scientific breakthroughs. “We don’t have to solve nuclear fusion to do this,” Narayan noted. With its targeted, data-driven methodology, Gridcare believes it can rapidly alleviate supply constraints plaguing the booming data center industry.
