A climate startup that aims to use waste heat from data centers to remove carbon dioxide from the sky got a $40 million boost Thursday from a collective funded by some of the world’s largest technology companies — including Google’s parent company Alphabet.
The deal with the direct air capture firm 280 Earth would permanently remove 61,600 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere by 2030 on behalf of the climate-focused collective known as Frontier, with members such as Meta, Stripe and Shopify.
It could also help limit the climate pollution from a data center building boom, which has been spurred by the growth of energy-intensive artificial intelligence applications.
“This is a great opportunity to find efficiency,” John Pimentel, the CEO of 280 Earth, said in an interview ahead of the announcement.
