Bloom Energy expands partnership with Intel for fuel cell-powered data center in Silicon Valley
Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE), renowned for its solid oxide fuel cell technology, has deepened its collaboration with Intel Corporation, culminating in a significant expansion of power capacity at Intel’s high-performance computing data center in Santa Clara, California. This agreement marks a major milestone as it positions the facility as the largest fuel cell-powered high-performance computing data center in Silicon Valley.
Since 2014, Intel’s Santa Clara site has benefited from Bloom Energy’s innovative fuel cell technology. The new agreement involves the installation of additional megawatts (MW) of Bloom’s Energy Server, significantly expanding the existing fuel cell infrastructure at the location. This enhancement not only bolsters the data center’s operational capacity but also underscores Intel’s ongoing commitment to energy-efficient and sustainable technology solutions.
Bloom Energy’s Chief Technology Officer, Ravi Prasher, expressed pride in the company’s longstanding relationship with Intel. He highlighted the versatility of Bloom’s fuel cells, which are compatible with both natural gas and hydrogen, and the company’s efforts to promote hydrogen as a primary fuel source. “Bloom Energy technology is compatible with hydrogen fuel in addition to natural gas. We are working with governments and industries to adopt hydrogen as a primary fuel when it becomes economically viable. Intel’s confidence in our fuel cell technology is a testament to Bloom’s ability to reliably meet the energy needs of cutting-edge and high-performance IT infrastructure,” said Prasher.
Intel’s approach to high-performance computing centers is equally forward-thinking. Shesha Krishnapura, Intel Fellow and Intel IT Chief Technology Officer, outlined the scale and efficiency of Intel’s existing data center operations. “Intel is leading the industry in extreme energy-efficient high-performance computing data centers with existing hyperscale Intel Santa Clara Data Center operating at 1.06 PUE, enabling the HPC scale needed for complex Intel chip design and technology development,” he explained.
The data center houses over 400,000 Intel® Xeon® based servers, more than 700 petabytes of storage, and over 800,000 network ports, necessitating further expansion to meet the growing demands of Intel products and Intel Foundry. Leveraging Bloom Energy’s solutions supports this growth, ensuring a robust and scalable infrastructure.
As global energy demands continue to climb, particularly within the data center sector, Bloom Energy’s fuel cells present a viable solution for on-site, rapidly deployable energy generation. This capability allows operators to efficiently scale operations to meet the dynamic needs of businesses and technological advancements.
The partnership between Bloom Energy and Intel represents a significant advancement in sustainable data center operations, leveraging cutting-edge fuel cell technology to meet the high energy demands of modern computing infrastructures. This initiative not only enhances the capacity and efficiency of Intel’s facilities but also sets a benchmark for the industry in sustainable energy use.