We knew we wished this checklist to replicate China’s emergence as a worldwide vitality superpower, and we ended up together with two Chinese language companies in key industries: renewables and batteries.
In 2024, China accounted for the highest 4 wind turbine makers worldwide. Envision was within the second spot, with 19.3 gigawatts of latest capability added final 12 months. However the firm isn’t restricted to wind; it’s working to assist energy heavy industries like metal and chemical substances with know-how like inexperienced hydrogen.
Batteries are additionally a sizzling business in China, and we’re seeing progress in tech past the lithium-ion cells that at present dominate EVs and vitality storage on the grid. We symbolize that business with HiNa Battery Know-how, a number one startup constructing sodium-ion batteries, which may very well be cheaper than at present’s choices. The corporate’s batteries are already being utilized in electrical mopeds and grid installations.
2. Vitality demand from knowledge facilities and AI is on everybody’s thoughts, particularly within the US.
One other pattern we seen this 12 months was a fixation on the rising vitality demand of information facilities, together with large deliberate devoted services that energy AI fashions. (Right here’s one other nudge to take a look at our Energy Hungry sequence on AI and vitality, in case you haven’t explored it already.)
Even when their know-how has nothing to do with knowledge facilities, corporations try to point out how they are often useful on this age of rising vitality demand. Some are signing profitable offers with tech giants that would present the cash wanted to assist deliver their product to market.
Kairos Energy hopes to be one such vitality generator, constructing next-generation nuclear reactors. Final 12 months, the corporate signed an settlement with Google that may see the corporate purchase as much as 500 megawatts of electrical energy from Kairos’s first reactors by means of 2035.