An AI-for-Climate Startup Won Nvidia’s Backing—After Putting the Climate Part on Ice

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang visited Paris this week to unveil a slate of investments in French startups, the chip giant’s latest move to solidify its position at the heart of the AI industry.

One of the companies, Entalpic, began life with the goal of slashing carbon-dioxide emissions by using AI for materials-science research. But you wouldn’t know that from Nvidia’s announcement. It praised Entalpic’s “expertise in surfaces and interfaces for semiconductor manufacturing and next-generation electronics.”

Entalpic is only two years old, but it already has a new mission. The pivot shows why it will be hard for AI companies to make good on promises that the technology will someday help the climate. It’s also a reminder that some sectors may prove resistant to AI disruption.

Many experts, from Microsoft to McKinsey, have pointed to materials-science breakthroughs as a key way in which AI could help cut emissions. Better-performing materials could improve the efficiency of batteries, solar panels and other equipment, reducing the cost of low-carbon technology.

AI lets researchers screen a million potentially useful materials a day, Entalpic co-founder Mathieu Galtier said, compared with perhaps 100 tests a year in a lab.

Entalpic identified promising materials for several applications. One was a new kind of cathode material for batteries. Another could be used to slow the degradation of advanced solar cells called perovskites. Then there were catalysts that could improve the efficiency of ammonia production for fertilizers, a century-old industrial process.

The problem? “There was no entry point,” Galtier said.

Despite the theoretical promise of the materials Entalpic identified, customers’ thin margins and risk aversion presented formidable hurdles.

China’s solar manufacturers are losing money. Battery makers are largely focused on optimizing existing manufacturing lines. Ammonia producers are wary of trying untested chemistry in their plants.

That’s what led Entalpic to change course and focus on customers with the resources and incentives to experiment. The AI boom is swelling chip makers’ coffers, and physical limits to chip performance are spurring them to innovate. With Nvidia’s investment, the terms of which weren’t disclosed, the move got an early endorsement.

“The semiconductor industry is more used to iterating, and they have bigger margins,” Galtier said.

Entalpic is now applying atomic-scale engineering to improve the efficiency of semiconductors. It isn’t the first startup in this field to rethink its strategy. London-based Orbital Industries early this year shelved a plan to develop materials called sorbents that are used in carbon-capture devices.

Orbital envisioned carbon-capture systems sitting inside data centers, helping tech companies reduce their carbon footprint. But Biden-era climate policies have been cut, and tech companies are most concerned with getting data centers built and running efficiently.

“We didn’t stop because the AI wasn’t working,” said Orbital Chief Executive Jonathan Godwin, a former researcher at Google DeepMind. “We stopped because the market conditions changed.”

In May, Orbital raised $50 million to develop its new product: cooling systems that use more efficient, greener alternatives to the chemical cooling agents used in some data centers.

Despite being jaded by the carbon-capture effort, Godwin said Orbital would dust off that research if demand emerges. Galtier plans to return to climate-tech applications once Entalpic’s technology has been proven.

First: Feed the AI beast

But there will still be limits to how quickly novel materials can be deployed. Godwin pointed to the blades in a jet turbine, each one a perfect crystal made of an advanced metal alloy that can withstand 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Could AI improve on that? Perhaps, but it couldn’t shortcut the arduous product testing.

“The only way that you know something lasts for 10 years with predictable performance is by running it for 10 years,” Godwin said.

These barriers to entry offer some industries a measure of safety from AI disruption. But they are a blow for the would-be disruptors—including those seeking to help the climate.

Why Trump’s diesel deal with Russia won’t ease prices much. The deal is getting pushback in Washington from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and the mooted volumes wouldn’t make much difference to prices ahead of the midterm elections: “a drop in the bucket,” said Denton Cinquegrana, Dow Jones Energy’s chief oil analyst. Surging fuel costs contributed to today’s hotter-than-expected inflation numbers.

Venture Global gets into the AI power boom. The liquefied-natural-gas exporter plans to build gas-fired power stations to supply data centers, and has already struck deals for equipment with GE Vernova and Baker Hughes Energy Services.

America’s EV charging is quietly getting better. Range anxiety remains a concern for many drivers, including WSJ columnist Dawn Gilbertson, but the charging network is expanding at a steady clip. On the other hand, it will take more than an improving consumer charging network to make electric big rigs competitive—even with diesel at $8.

Amy Myers Jaffe is obsessive about climate risk. As an energy and sustainability expert, she has a professional interest. But she has also lived through a hurricane in Houston, heat waves in California and polar-vortex cold snaps in Connecticut. In a Journal essay, she walks through the steps she has taken to improve the resilience of her own home, from a sump pump in the basement to HEPA-filter air purifiers.

That’s the combined capacity of the six chargers at a new charging station for Tesla semi trucks in Ellabell, Ga. Operating at maximum capacity, they would collectively draw as much electricity as a small town. The cost of those facilities—and the time needed to get permits—is a major barrier to electric trucking in the U.S., Dow Jones Energy reports. For now, biofuels and natural gas are the alternatives gaining ground as diesel prices soar.

WSJ Climate & Energy offers news, analysis and exclusive data focused on the intersection of business, money and climate. You’ll find highlights from across Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and Investor’s Business Daily, plus data and analysis from Dow Jones Energy and its heritage brands: OPIS, McCloskey, PetroChem Wire and Chemical Market Analytics.

Today’s email was written by Ed Ballard in London. Contact him at ed.ballard@wsj.com. Contact the team at climate@wsj.com.