{"id":47609,"date":"2026-06-09T22:47:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T22:47:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:47:35","slug":"gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"GM joins race to build batteries for AI data centers and the grid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The race to secure power for AI data centers has spilled over into some unusual places, including the automotive world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Battery recycler Redwood Materials kicked off the trend last year with a new energy-storage division and a project that attached <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/07\/16\/gm-teams-up-with-redwood-materials-to-power-data-centers-with-ev-batteries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">old EV packs to a Crusoe data center<\/a> in Nevada. Then Ford said it was repurposing some of its <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/12\/15\/ford-is-starting-a-battery-storage-business-to-power-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">battery-manufacturing capacity<\/a> to make grid-scale batteries. And now GM is announcing its own \u2014 arguably more ambitious \u2014 plans for an energy-storage system (ESS).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GM unveiled on Tuesday two new phases in its attack on the energy-storage market. The biggest swing by far is GM\u2019s new partnership with energy-storage startup <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peakenergy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Peak Energy<\/a>. For that partnership, GM is developing an entirely new sodium-ion battery chemistry tailored for grid-scale deployments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Outside of China, no automaker has announced plans to build sodium-ion cells.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe way we\u2019re getting into the market is the easy way, through ESS,\u201d Kurt Kelty, vice president of battery and sustainability at GM, told TechCrunch. \u201cThe performance characteristics are just what is needed in that market.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GM wouldn\u2019t share with TechCrunch how much money it is investing in this energy-storage effort. But we do know the company has committed $900 million to commercialize new battery chemistries, an investment that includes a new <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/06\/05\/gms-electric-future-depends-on-a-new-battery-and-this-building\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">battery-development center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sodium-ion batteries work similarly to lithium-ion, but they swap out key materials to make the cells cheaper, longer lasting, and less prone to overheating. The trade-off is that sodium-ion batteries need to be larger and heavier to store the same amount of electricity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peak Energy has already been working on energy-storage systems that use sodium-ion batteries. Because sodium-ion batteries behave differently from lithium-ion, Peak has developed an energy-storage system with that in mind. Its grid-scale batteries don\u2019t have cooling systems or fire-suppression systems because there\u2019s less risk of overheating. The setup reduces upfront costs, and it should also eliminate costly maintenance, Paul Menson, director of energy-storage commercialization at GM, told TechCrunch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is the manifestation of the hardest part to engineer is no part at all,\u201d he said. \u201cEliminate the part, eliminate the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GM plans to sell sodium-ions cells to the startup, which will then integrate them into its products. But that won\u2019t happen right away. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first GM cells are expected to enter trial production at the company\u2019s Battery Cell Development Center in 2028. TechCrunch was recently given an exclusive look at the new facility, which GM expects will cut about a year from the commercialization process for sodium-ion batteries, reducing costs in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GM\u2019s sodium-ion cells are still years away from commercial production, however. In the meantime, the automaker will sell lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells to LG Energy Solution for use in its energy-storage systems. LG Energy Solution already works with GM through its Ultium joint venture, which makes batteries for the automaker\u2019s EVs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alongside the partnerships with LG and Peak, GM announced that it was expanding its work with Redwood Materials, the battery-recycling and energy-storage startup founded by former Tesla executive J.B. Straubel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Redwood already buys scrap from GM\u2019s battery factories and used battery packs from its EVs. GM has a pipeline of around 10,000 packs it\u2019s sending to Redwood, and the startup has been operating a <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/07\/16\/gm-teams-up-with-redwood-materials-to-power-data-centers-with-ev-batteries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">12 megawatt\/63 megawatt-hour migrogrid<\/a> using second-life packs at a Crusoe data center in Sparks, Nevada. GM said it is buying a 7.2 megawatt-hour Redwood system for use at one of its plants in Michigan, which it estimates will save it around $3 million over its lifetime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The GM installation is \u201ca step one\u201d for Redwood, Cal Lankton, chief commercial officer for Redwood, told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Data centers, where Redwood already operates, and industrial sites like GM\u2019s are \u201cvastly different things,\u201d he said. Where data centers might use batteries nearly continuously to absorb some of the power fluctuations from GPUs, industrial sites are more likely to use them to shave off peaks in power demand, which can lower monthly power bills, and use them to provide backup power in case of an outage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe factory is really excited because now we\u2019ve got a more reliable factory,\u201d Kelty said. \u201cUltimately, we\u2019ll be having similar installations like this at all of our factories. It just makes good economic sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>When you purchase through links in our articles, <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards\/\">we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-bets-big-on-energy-storage-for-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The race to secure power for AI data centers has spilled over into some unusual places, including the automotive world.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.0 (Yoast SEO v26.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>bondahx - bondahx<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GM joins race to build batteries for AI data centers and the grid\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The race to secure power for AI data centers has spilled over into some unusual places, including the automotive world.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"bondahx\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-09T22:47:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/logo00.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"yawyaw111\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"yawyaw111\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"yawyaw111\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/#\/schema\/person\/46dc9a4646c23a602cea23ce9f4681e8\"},\"headline\":\"GM joins race to build batteries for AI data centers and the grid\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-09T22:47:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\"},\"wordCount\":746,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gm-headquarters-getty.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":[\"WebPage\",\"ItemPage\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bondahx.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/gm-joins-race-to-build-batteries-for-ai-data-centers-and-the-grid\/\",\"name\":\"bondahx - 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