Los Angeles-based Critical Energy is developing modular power plants that can be mass-produced in factories, transported in sections by 18-wheelers, and installed in as little as two weeks to meet soaring electricity demand from AI data centres.

The AI boom is intensifying interest in modular generation and geothermal energy as data centre operators need dependable, around-the-clock power. Although Critical Energy’s turbines were designed for geothermal projects, they could also generate electricity from waste heat produced by data centres.

Another geothermal developer, Fervo Energy Co., raised almost $1.9 billion in a US initial public offering in May.

Conventional geothermal development has been limited largely to places where naturally hot water or steam is relatively accessible. That could change with enhanced geothermal systems and closed-loop technologies. These use advanced drilling to reach hot rock in locations without natural steam reservoirs.

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are a next-generation technology that unlocks limitless, around-the-clock renewable energy almost anywhere in the world. Unlike conventional geothermal, which requires natural water and permeable rock, EGS uses hydraulic stimulation to engineer artificial underground reservoirs.