In a big step for the data center industry VEIR is about to commercialize superconducting cables. Guided by CEO Tim Heidel, these cables hold the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of power generation and delivery while increasing capacity. VEIR hopes to establish a pilot program next year. By 2027, they expect to have a complete commercial launch to address the increasing power requirements of data centers of the future.
Tim Heidel emphasized the competitive landscape, stating, “The AI and data center community is desperate to find solutions today and is desperate to stay ahead. There’s a tremendous amount of competitive pressure to stay at the forefront.” Data centers have seen one of the largest increases in their demand for electricity. They’ve increased exponentially from tens of kilowatts to 200 kilowatts in a handful of years, producing an immediate need for answers. Heidel foresees this demand jumping much more dramatically. He figures that requirements will be up to 600 kilowatts within just a few years, and likely a megawatt beyond that.
VEIR has quickly established itself as an important player in the market. This goes hand in hand with their use of the same superconductors, acquired from the same suppliers, allowing for consistent and reliable products. The company’s American-made superconducting cables take up 20 times less space than conventional copper cables. They transmit electricity more than five times farther without any energy loss. This innovation is a major driver in improving the efficiency of new data center designs. As the demands for technology increase, these improvements are even more essential.
As someone who’s worked with data centers over the last few years and seeing these challenges first-hand, this should be huge news. “We were seeing a lot of folks saying, ‘Oh this grid interconnection problem is a real thing, and we got to figure out how to solve that.’ Then a handful of potential customers started turning around and saying, we actually have really hard problems to solve on our campuses and inside of our buildings,” he explained.
Critical data infrastructure is changing drastically. Heidel noted that theirs is the leading development, moving faster than the transmission industry. “The pace at which the data center community is moving, evolving, growing, scaling, and tackling challenges is far higher than the transmission community,” he remarked. This acceleration makes the case for breakthrough solutions all the more urgent—solutions like those being pioneered by VEIR.
The company’s approach focuses on integration, bringing together each component into a sleek, efficient system built to provide maximum power in minimal footprint. Heidel elaborated on this integration: “We’re really a systems integrator that builds the cooling systems, manufactures the cables, puts the whole system together in order to deliver an enormous amount of power in a small space.”
Tim De Chant, a former senior climate reporter at TechCrunch, has been following VEIR’s progress closely. Below, he tells us how these developments are changing the blades and the data center world around them. De Chant received her PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, they have both long-standing backgrounds in science writing, with Mckenzie also being a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing. He is available for consultation on these topics at tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.