With data centers expected to consume as much as 12% of electricity in the U.S. by 2028, it’s no surprise that tech companies are looking for power no matter the source, whether it be nuclear, renewables, or something else entirely. But solar produces a very different type of electric current from a nuclear plant, and integrating various power sources can be challenging.
“We’ve got about 90 gigawatts [of data centers] globally in 2023, and that’s going to increase to over 185 gigawatts by 2028, so it’s only just around the corner,” Gary Lawrence, CEO of Amperesand, told TechCrunch.
Today’s equipment, the transformers that convert power from one format to another, are up to the task, but Amperesand is betting that its technology can do it better and more efficiently.
At its core, Amperesand’s technology replaces the iron cores that define old transformers with silicon carbide. Existing transformers follow the same basic design that has worked well for over a century, but they have their shortcomings. For one, they aren’t good at regulating surges and dips in voltage or frequency. Plus, they have to be tailored to the specific format of electricity they’re looking to transform.
Solid-state transformers made with silicon carbide promise to change that. “The solid-state transformer platform is multi-port by design, it’s modular,” said Brian Dow, Amperesand’s new chief product officer.
“We can make different AC phases, AC to AC, AC to DC. You can natively integrate DC sources like photovoltaic [solar] and batteries. You can integrate with turbines, small modular reactors. And you can basically seamlessly transition between them, so if the grid has an issue, you can back up but also you can come back online.”
Amperesand is in the process of raising a Series A round after it landed a $12.5 million seed round last year, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. “We’ve just kicked off a Series A, and it’s moving really quickly,” said Phil Inagaki, managing partner at Temasek’s Xora Innovations. The company is targeting EV charging and grid applications in addition to data centers, and the solid-state nature of the technology makes it easier to control with software. It demonstrated a 6 megawatt transformer last year.
Xora incubated Amperesand, and Inagaki led the company through its initial formation. Recently, with some funding and a firm strategy in place, he handed the reins to a new leadership team, including Lawrence, Dow, and Tommy Joyner, the company’s new chief technology officer.
The Singapore-based startup is also in the process of opening an office here in the U.S. to be closer to the massive market and to tap local talent. Dow and Joyner, for example, both did stints at Tesla and Generac.
“The U.S. is still where there’s amazing talent that we can capture,” Inagaki said. “We have some in Singapore, but we won’t be able to scale that quickly. So definitely, that talent angle was a big factor.”
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President Donald Trump is trying to halt the flow of funding for EV charging infrastructure from two programs that have benefited Tesla — the latest example of how Elon Musk’s political interests seem to be at odds with his car company’s goal of advancing sustainable energy.
It’s not a given that Trump’s gambit will succeed. But if it does, Tesla could be cut off from two sources of funding that the automaker has tapped the past two years to build out its market-leading EV charging network.
In one of the myriad executive orders Trump signed on the first day of his second term, he declared that “[a]ll agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from programs created by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. He specifically calls out stopping funding for EV charging stations that’s been made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) grant program.
Those agencies are supposed to submit a review of “processes, policies, and programs for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursements” within 90 days of the date of this order, and all agency heads shall submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Economic Council (NEC). The order also states that agencies cannot disburse more funds unless the “Director of OMB and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy have determined that such disbursements are consistent with any review recommendations they have chosen to adopt.”
Musk has long claimed that Tesla’s mission is “accelerating the transition to sustainable energy.” But he is now officially working with the second Trump administration, which took big swings at sustainable energy on its first day. Trump has already signed orders halting federal leases for offshore wind development, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, and is trying to reverse other Biden administration EV policies.
Tesla was recently part of a group that won a $100 million award from the CFI program to build out charging infrastructure for heavy-duty electric trucks across Illinois, as TechCrunch first reported last week. The company was hoping to secure around $40 million from the group’s original funding request of $126 million. Tesla has also repeatedly sought around $100 million in CFI funding to build a truck-charging corridor between Northern California and southern Texas, but that application has been passed over multiple times.
Tesla’s CFI award in Illinois is a small portion of the nearly $2 billion the Department of Transportation has allocated over the last two years. Tesla has won a much greater share of grants from the NEVI program — which doles out smaller amounts of money to states, which, in turn, use those funds to offer grants to build charging infrastructure. Tesla had won around 13% of all NEVI awards by the middle of 2024 and was using those millions to further build out its Supercharger network, which is now open to almost all competing EVs.
Trump could slow or stop the flow of future spending from these programs, according to Martin Lockman, a fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He might especially be able to do so if his administration is successful in its promised legal fight over the Impoundment Control Act, which limits the president’s ability to stop Congress from spending money that’s been appropriated.
“There’s a lot of wiggle room here, and the Trump administration will certainly do everything that it can to delay spending under these bills,” Lockman said.
It is not clear that Trump can legally stop the funding of awards that are already under contract, though.
“People who have contracts today have rights under those contracts, and the President can’t take them away,” he said.
But, Lockman cautioned, if agencies feel enough pressure from Trump, they could violate the terms of those contracts — and potentially the laws that established the funding programs in the first place — and refuse to give out the money. In that situation, the companies, state and local agencies, or other entities that won awards from NEVI or CFI would have to fight to get them fulfilled.
“If the new administration wants to make people fight for their contracts in court, that would certainly be a huge barrier to building EV infrastructure,” he said.
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A U.S. federal safety regulator has “upgraded” its investigation into Ford’s hands-free advanced driver assistance system known as BlueCruise — a required step before a recall can be issued.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation launched a probe into Ford BlueCruise last April after the agency confirmed the system was active in Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles involved in two fatal crashes. In both instances, the Mustang Mach E cars hit stationary vehicles.
NHTSA issued a notice this week that it has upgraded the investigation to an engineering analysis. This means the agency will dig deeper into BlueCruise and its potential limitations, which includes vehicle evaluations, reviewing additional technical information, and performing additional analysis of related crashes and non-crash reports.
An estimated 129,222 Ford Mustang Mach E vehicles are equipped with BlueCruise, according to the regulator. A Ford spokesperson told TechCrunch the automaker is working with NHTSA to support its investigation.
The agency said its initial investigation found BlueCruise has limitations in the “detection of stationary vehicles in certain conditions.” Those limitations include the potential to falsely detect stationary objects at long distances when the Ford vehicle is traveling at or above 62 miles per hour.
“Additionally, system performance may be limited when there is poor visibility due to insufficient illumination,” NHTSA said.
Ford debuted BlueCruise in 2021 on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models. The hands-free feature uses cameras, radar sensors, and software to provide a combination of adaptive cruise control, lane centering, and speed-sign recognition. BlueCruise and competitor GM’s Super Cruise systems are both hands-free, although an in-cabin camera monitors drivers to ensure their eyes are on the road.
These systems are considered competitors to Tesla Autopilot, which still requires the driver’s hands to remain on the wheel. Autopilot and the upgraded Tesla Full Self-Driving software are still considered less constrained than Ford BlueCruise, which only works on certain pre-mapped highways.
Last October, NHTSA also opened an investigation into Tesla’s so-called “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” software after four reported crashes in low-visibility situations — including one where a pedestrian was killed. That investigation is ongoing.
This article was updated to include a comment from Ford.
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