So, what has hap­pened since then [1, 2, 3]?

Well, the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is strug­gling with more or less the same bot­tle­necks as back then. Of course, tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment has been steady – espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the AI boom – but the biggest obsta­cles remain. Such as the need for small­er and thin­ner high-per­for­mance and ener­gy-effi­cient capacitors.

How­ev­er, with the rise of more pow­er­ful AI mod­els comes a surge need for elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er these devel­op­ments. And in this fol­low-up, I will delve into how Smoltek’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy could play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the future of AI.

The age of AI and how I see the two sides of the AI Coin in my journey with Smoltek

Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) is today reshap­ing the world — not only through algo­rithms and data, but also through the mate­ri­als and tech­nolo­gies that enable its phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture. At Smoltek, this trans­for­ma­tion is reflect­ed in two dis­tinct yet inter­con­nect­ed inno­va­tions: ultra-thin capac­i­tors (devel­oped by Smoltek Semi) and a low-irid­i­um con­tent elec­trode (devel­oped by Smoltek Hydro­gen). In my view, these inno­va­tions appear to rep­re­sent two sides of the same coin, each con­tribut­ing to the glob­al pur­suit of sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy progress towards smarter and sus­tain­able AI.

As some­one deeply engaged in both aca­d­e­m­ic research and indus­tri­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, my per­son­al vision is to break down bar­ri­ers and bridge the gap between research and indus­try. I am a strong believ­er that mean­ing­ful inno­va­tion hap­pens when cut­ting-edge sci­ence meets real-world appli­ca­tion. Smoltek’s dual path approach exem­pli­fies this phi­los­o­phy. I think it is fair to say that I am wit­ness­ing Smoltek’s dual path towards a sus­tain­able future.

Smoltek Semi: A thinner capacitor for Smarter AI

On one side of the coin is Smoltek Semi, which devel­ops ultra-thin capac­i­tors using pro­pri­etary car­bon nanos­truc­tures. These com­po­nents are designed for advanced semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing, where space, per­for­mance, speed and effi­cien­cy in deliv­er­ing ener­gy to the dig­i­tal cir­cuit are crit­i­cal. As AI sys­tems grow in com­plex­i­ty, they demand faster, more com­pact and pow­er-hun­gry dig­i­tal hard­ware per foot­print [4].

Smoltek Semi’s world’s thinnest capac­i­tor [5, 10], a local ener­gy stor­age reser­voir for AI cir­cuits enable high-den­si­ty inte­gra­tion, can deliv­er high ener­gy den­si­ty and improved elec­tri­cal per­for­mances at small­er vol­u­met­ric foot­print [6, 9], mak­ing them ide­al for high­ly inte­grat­ed, high per­form­ing next-gen­er­a­tion AI proces­sors and chiplet archi­tec­tures. Such prod­ucts not only will sup­port the evo­lu­tion of AI but also con­tributes to reduc­ing the expen­sive real estate vol­u­met­ric foot­print of dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture. By push­ing the bound­aries of mate­r­i­al sci­ence, Smoltek Semi aims at mak­ing AI hard­ware more sus­tain­able — a cru­cial step in align­ing AI tech­no­log­i­cal progress with envi­ron­men­tal responsibility.

Smoltek Hydrogen: Clean Energy Through Nanotechnology & Nanomaterials 

On the flip side of that coin, we find Smoltek Hydro­gen, which applies the same car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form to enable PEM elec­trolyz­er based Gigafac­to­ry a pos­si­bil­i­ty. Hydro­gen is a key enabler of the green ener­gy tran­si­tion, and Smoltek Hydrogen’s inno­va­tions aim to make its pro­duc­tion more effi­cient, scal­able, recy­clable and cost effec­tive through min­i­mal usage of scarce mined mate­ri­als (e.g. Ir, Pt etc.) [7].

Why does it mat­ter to AI, you may won­der, and the answer is sim­ple: The require­ments for AI pow­er sources must be fulfilled.

Just to give a per­spec­tive of AI ener­gy needs; glob­al pow­er demand from AI data cen­ters alone could reach 68 GW by 2027 and 327 GW by 2030, com­pared to a total glob­al data cen­ter capac­i­ty of only 88 GW in 2022. AI train­ing could require up to 1 GW in a sin­gle loca­tion by 2028, and as much as 8 GW – the equiv­a­lent of eight nuclear reac­tors – by 2030 [8].

Using car­bon nanos­truc­tures, Smoltek Hydro­gen enhances the per­for­mance of elec­trolyz­er cell mate­ri­als, increas­ing sur­face area, cur­rent den­si­ty and cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty. This leads to more effi­cient water split­ting and low­er pro­duc­tion costs — espe­cial­ly impor­tant for green hydro­gen, which is gen­er­at­ed using renew­able ener­gy. This will help reduce car­bon emis­sions from AI’s ener­gy needs.

By push­ing the lim­its of mate­r­i­al sci­ence, Smoltek Hydro­gen aims at mak­ing AI pow­er sources green­er, sus­tain­able and enabler of CO2 foot­print reduc­tion per com­pu­ta­tion­al con­sump­tion — anoth­er cru­cial step in align­ing AI tech­no­log­i­cal progress with envi­ron­men­tal responsibility.

Bridging the gap between Research and Industry: A Personal Mission

My jour­ney with Smoltek – through col­lab­o­ra­tions and indus­tri­al engage­ments – reflects a broad­er mis­sion: to con­nect aca­d­e­m­ic insights with indus­tri­al impact. The rea­son for this is that too often, ground­break­ing research remains con­fined to lab­o­ra­to­ries, and my ambi­tion has always been to help trans­late these dis­cov­er­ies into tech­nolo­gies that solve real-world problems.

There­fore, it is encour­ag­ing to wit­ness Smoltek emerg­ing as a pow­er­ful exam­ple of how deep-tech research can direct­ly impact glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.

It is per­haps a research top­ic by itself to reflect on how a sin­gle tech­nol­o­gy plat­form of inno­va­tion — car­bon nanos­truc­tures — can serve vast­ly dif­fer­ent com­mer­cial mar­ket domain, yet again, as of now, con­verges through AI hard­ware plat­form needs.

How­ev­er, this con­ver­gence of dis­ci­plines is not just excit­ing, but it is nec­es­sary. The chal­lenges we face today — cli­mate change, scarci­ty of ener­gy & raw mate­ri­als, and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion — require solu­tions that span across sec­tors. By fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between researchers, engi­neers, and indus­try lead­ers, we can accel­er­ate the path from idea to impact.

A Unified Future: AI and Sustainability Hand in Hand

Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen may serve dif­fer­ent mar­kets, but they share a com­mon foun­da­tion: advanced car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy and a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Togeth­er, they rep­re­sent the two sides of AI’s poten­tial — one dri­ving smarter elec­tron­ics, the oth­er enabling clean ener­gy source.

This dual inno­va­tion the­sis reflects a deep­er truth: the future of AI is not just about smarter algo­rithms, but also about smarter mate­ri­als and green­er sys­tems. Smoltek’s work — and the col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­it behind it — offers a com­pelling vision of how tech­nol­o­gy can serve both progress and the plan­et. One tech­nol­o­gy plat­form but many possibilities!

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Dis­claimer: the opin­ions that are expressed here are of my own.

Ref­er­ences:
[1] Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part I: The Hype;
[2] Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part II: The Real­i­ty;
[3 ]Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part III: The Future
[4] www.lesswrong.com/posts/bdQhzQsHjNrQp7cNS/estimates-of-gpu-or-equivalent-resources-of-large-ai-players
[5] Smoltek demon­strates the thinnest capac­i­tor in the world
[6] Capac­i­tor: https://passive-components.eu/smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitor-break-1-%C2%B5f-mm%C2%B2/
[7] Smoltek’s low-irid­i­um PTE reach tar­get of 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2
[8] www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572‑1.html
[9] Mod­el: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501815 (High-fre­quen­cy elec­tri­cal cir­cuit mod­el for inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors uti­liz­ing lossy nanos­truc­tures)
[10] CNF-MIM small scale production