Joulent, the Houston-based energy company building dedicated power plants for AI data centers, has secured a $1.75 billion strategic minority investment from National Grid. The deal, announced July 1, gives the British utility's National Grid Ventures arm a 35% stake and marks one of the largest single bets yet on the "speed-to-power" model reshaping how hyperscale computing gets built.
Power Without the Interconnection Queue
Founded and incubated over three years by Engine No. 1 in collaboration with GE Vernova, Joulent develops multi-gigawatt generation that is co-located directly at the data center fence line. Its trademarked "Across-the-Meter" approach sends electricity from turbine to server rack without touching the wider grid, sidestepping utility interconnection queues that can delay projects for years, while promising exportable capacity for local markets over time.
"American innovation is moving faster than the power infrastructure built to support it. Joulent was created to close that gap," said founder and CEO Chris James, adding that the company is built for scale "without shifting the cost of that growth onto local communities."
Project Kilby: 2.67 GW for Microsoft
Alongside the investment, Joulent formalized a 50% ownership interest in its first project, Kilby, developed with GE Vernova and Energy Forge, a subsidiary of Chevron Power Solutions. Kilby will deliver approximately 2.67 gigawatts to a Microsoft-operated data center campus under a 20-year power purchase agreement, a template Joulent intends to repeat across its multi-gigawatt pipeline.
Utilities Chase the AI Load Boom
National Grid chief executive Zoë Yujnovich called the deal "a disciplined, partner-led investment in contracted critical infrastructure for the AI-driven large load economy," bringing supply chain access to high-voltage equipment along with capital. GE Vernova, which supplies turbines to the venture, said the investment signals confidence in the collaboration; the company has been on an expansion streak of its own, recently debuting a 3.8 MW turbine in India.
The raise crowns a week in which capital flooded AI infrastructure, from Together AI's $800 million Series C to Stathera's $55 million round for data center timing chips and Omen AI's $31 million for cooling-fluid monitoring, underscoring that the bottleneck in AI has shifted from models to megawatts.
Reporting based on coverage from Business Wire and Data Center Knowledge.