General Motors is joining the race to build batteries for AI data centers and the grid

The race to secure power for AI data centers has spilled into some unusual places, including the world of cars.

Battery recycling company Redwood Materials started the trend last year with a new energy storage division and facility project Legacy EV packages to Cruso data center In nevada. Ford then said she reuses some of her items Battery manufacturing capacity To make batteries on a grid scale. And now GM is announcing its own — arguably more ambitious — plans for an energy storage system (ESS).

General Motors on Tuesday unveiled two new phases in its assault on the energy storage market. The biggest swing yet is GM’s new partnership with an energy storage startup Peak energy. For this partnership, GM is developing an entirely new sodium-ion battery chemistry specifically designed for grid-scale deployments.

Outside of China, no automaker has announced plans to build sodium ion cells.

“The way we get to market is the easy way, through ESS,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of batteries and sustainability, told TechCrunch. “The performance characteristics are exactly what is needed in this market.”

GM would not share with TechCrunch how much money it is investing in these energy storage efforts. But we do know that the company has committed $900 million to commercialize the new battery chemistry, an investment that includes a new product. Battery Development Center.

Sodium-ion batteries work similarly to lithium-ion batteries, but replace core materials to make the cells cheaper, longer-lasting, and less susceptible to overheating. The trade-off is that sodium-ion batteries have to be larger and heavier to store the same amount of electricity.

Peak Energy is already working on energy storage systems that use sodium-ion batteries. Because sodium-ion batteries behave differently than lithium-ion batteries, Peak developed an energy storage system with this in mind. Their grid-scale batteries do not have cooling or fire suppression systems because there is less risk of overheating. The setup reduces upfront costs and should also eliminate costly maintenance, Paul Minson, GM’s director of energy storage marketing, told TechCrunch.

“This is a manifestation of the hardest part for engineering, which is not a part at all,” he said. “Remove the part, remove the problem.”

GM plans to sell sodium ion cells to the startup, which will then integrate them into its products. But that won’t happen right away.

The first GM cells are expected to enter pilot production at the company’s Battery Cell Development Center in 2028. TechCrunch was recently given an exclusive look at the new facility, which GM expects will shave about a year off the marketing process for sodium-ion batteries, cutting costs in the process.

However, genetically modified sodium ion cells are still years away from commercial production. Meanwhile, 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 joint venture Ultium, which makes batteries for the automaker’s electric vehicles.

Along with partnerships with LG and Peak, GM announced it is expanding its work with Redwood Materials, the battery recycling and energy storage startup founded by former Tesla CEO JB Straubel.

Redwood already buys scrap from GM’s battery plants and uses battery packs from its electric vehicles. GM has a pipeline of about 10,000 packages that it sends to Redwood, and the startup has been managing 12 MW/63 MW/h hybrid grid Using Second Life packages at the Crusoe Data Center in Sparks, Nevada. GM said it is purchasing a 7.2-megawatt-hour Redwood system for use at one of its plants in Michigan, which it estimates will save it about $3 million over its lifetime.

The GM installation is “the first step” for Redwood, Cal Lankton, Redwood’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch.

Data centers, where Redwood already operates, and industrial sites like GM’s are “vastly different things,” he said. Where data centers may use batteries almost continuously to absorb some power fluctuations from GPUs, industrial sites are more likely to use them to reduce peaks in power demand, potentially lowering monthly energy bills, and to use them to provide backup power in the event of an outage.

“The plant is really excited that we now have a more reliable plant,” Kelty said. “Eventually, we will have similar facilities like this at all of our plants. It makes economic sense.”