Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) is plugging into the data center boom. The equipment giant said Thursday it struck a long-term partnership with Hunt Energy Co. to build out power systems that can handle the nonstop demands of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
The deal brings together Caterpillar's portfolio of gas and diesel generators, turbines and monitoring tech with Hunt Energy's track record in infrastructure, financing and battery storage. The goal is to deliver reliable, independent energy for data centers, which have quickly become some of the world's hungriest electricity users.
Starting in Texas, we're laying the foundation for a new era of data center power infrastructure, Hunt Energy CEO Hunter Hunt said, calling the collaboration with Caterpillar a big step toward more flexible solutions.
The first joint project kicks off in Texas and will form part of a broader plan to provide as much as 1 gigawatt of generation capacity across North America. Expansion into overseas markets is also on the table. Hunt Energy, for its part, has already deployed 310 megawatts of battery storage in the past four years.