What do you get when you throw 24 startups at the data center industry — mixing entrepreneurs’ inspiration with one of the most cautious, risk averse industries?
You get bold dreams and boring reliability documentation. Pitch decks and real-world pilot tests.
We saw that dynamic in action when we created a cauldron of new data center ideas at Data Center World 2026, through the Innovation Challenge Powered by ABB. The Challenge put 24 startups through a Shark Tank-style competition, with founders pitching a panel of experts and winners chosen across several categories.
For example, XL Batteries won Most Promising Startup recognition with its technology to replace conventional lithium-ion batteries with organic flow batteries, aiming to provide instant power response and longer-duration energy storage, all with lower fire risk.
XL Batteries’ idea is gaining industry interest, but it’s a long march to large scale deployment, with a gradual commercialization strategy built on field deployments, independent validation, and operational testing.
“We’re not inventing anything new in terms of how you build trust,” says Daniel Sottosanti, XL’s head of strategy and business development. “It’s real-world deployment data.”
Below is a snapshot of each of the seven winning startups, with links to in-depth articles on each written by Data Center World’s Lana McIvor, who guided the Innovation Challenge Powered by ABB.
The tech: AlumaPower’s platform uses aluminum as a fuel source to generate clean, dispatchable electricity for data centers. Dubbed its Galvanic Generator, the platform builds from long-established aluminum-air battery technology but overcomes many of the past limitations.
Innovation Challenge category award: Power Inside Data Centers
The pitch: Aim is to provide data centers backup systems that can be tapped for on-demand power. While the underlying science behind AlumaPower is established, the team is focused on proving reliability and integration. “Data centers operate under very rigorous design principles,” says Bremner Churchill, Director of Growth and Strategy. “You have to demonstrate predictability, reliability, and full integration at scale.”
The tech: AssetCool uses proprietary robots and drones to apply a proprietary cooling coating on electrical transmission lines to cut conductor temperatures. Lines at lower temperatures can increase power transfer capacity on existing assets without major construction, unlocking grid capacity.
Innovation Challenge category award: Grid and Power
The pitch: AssetCool technology can be deployed to help increase grid capacity significantly faster than a project to build more transmission capacity. “We need solutions that operate on timelines aligned to the data center industry, not traditional seven- to ten-year infrastructure cycles,” says Steve Hambric, Chief Commercial Officer at AssetCool.
The tech: Edgecom Energy software optimizes how large data centers consume and store electricity and interact with the grid. The platform combines energy forecasting, demand response, battery optimization, and microgrid management to help operators cut costs and participate in energy markets.
Innovation Challenge category award: Building Operations
The pitch: Data center operators historically prioritized reliability first. They overprovisioned backup systems heavily for redundancy, which made sense because energy was a modest slice of total operating costs. The economics of AI are changing that equation. “The lowest kilowatt-hour per token is going to matter,” says Behdad Bahrami, Co-Founder and CEO of Edgecom Energy.
The tech: Hayzel developed a small turbine that uses the expansion of refrigerant in a commercial chiller to turn the turbine and generate carbon-free electricity and additional cooling capacity. It’s deployed inline with an existing cooling system, so can be online in about a week.
Innovation Challenge category award: Cooling and Thermal
The pitch: Hayzel is focused on measurement and verification of results with its pilot customer, a California data center, using power meters to measure electricity generated. It works with existing cooling systems, and can also be easily routed around, so it won’t stop production if there’s any problem. “Technologies that get massively adopted are usually simple, reliable, and cost effective,” says co-founder Matt Price. “And when speed matters, they need to work with the systems that already exist.”
The tech: Latent AI software helps organizations run AI models efficiently on edge devices such as cameras, sensors, drones, and industrial equipment. By optimizing and compressing AI workloads, the company lets data be analyzed closer to where it is generated.
Innovation Challenge category award: Networking and IT
The pitch: Built originally for defense industry edge use cases, the idea is that Latent AI can help data center rethink how AI workloads are run across a computing network, reducing transmission, storage, and processing in central data centers. “AI workload is causing that explosion in data center buildouts and power consumption,” says Jags Kandasamy, Co-Founder and CEO of Latent AI. “The question is whether we can fundamentally reduce that footprint.”
The tech: Spiritus is developing power facilities that combine natural gas generation, air capture technology, and underground carbon storage, using proven technology elements cleverly integrated. Its model is designed to generate firm power while removing more carbon dioxide than the facility emits.
Innovation Challenge category award: Most Promising Startup
The pitch: Carbon emission mitigation is often an issue assessed separately from core power decisions. The Spiritus team believes it can remove the trade-off between speed-to- power and lower emissions for data centers, with power, emissions management, and resource planning tightly linked. “Power still has to be firm. Cooling still has to work. The difference is that the carbon question becomes part of the infrastructure itself rather than something sitting outside of it,” says Charles Cadieu, co-founder and CEO of Spiritus.
The tech: XL Batteries’ organic flow battery is designed to provide storage for instant power response and longer-duration access, while using a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte chemistry that cuts fire risk and avoids critical minerals.
Innovation Challenge category award: Most Promising Startup
The pitch: Solar and wind can be among the cheapest electricity generation, but they require longer storage than the typical lithium-ion battery installation designed for two- to four-hour discharge windows. Operators increasingly want longer duration storage for their behind-the-meter power generation. It has systems in place, now it’s a matter of building a track record of success that satisfies operators and their financiers. “Customers want bankability, and banks want deployment history,” Sottosanti says.