Klarna Co-Founder’s VC Firm Pledges $348 Million to Climate-Focused AI

Investment group Norrsken VC has pledged $348 million to AI startups focused on climate change.

The venture capital firm, started by Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth, plans to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) companies alongside its early-stage funds Norrsken Accelerator and Norrsken Launcher, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (June 25).

“We would love to see AI with all its power be used to solve some of the biggest challenges out there,” Norrsken General Partner Tove Larsson told Bloomberg.

The pledged investment comes on top of an industry surge that drew in more than $110 billion in investments last year, according to Norrsken.

“It’s one of the most intense capital flows we have ever seen,” Larsson said.

The report noted an area of contention for ethical investing: AI data centers require a massive amount of energy to operate.

Larsson acknowledged to Bloomberg that energy consumption is a concern, but said her fund is looking into startups that address those challenges. Among these are Submer Technologies, which says it works to develop “smarter, cleaner” data centers.

“We are looking at companies that can significantly reduce the footprint of the data centers and hence enable a more sustainable AI revolution,” she said.

PYMNTS wrote last year about efforts by tech firms to build greener data centers that reduce energy costs without sacrificing performance.

Companies such Sustainable Metal Cloud are at the forefront of this effort, coming up with cooling solutions for data centers that are aiming to lower energy usage while boosting computing power.

These advancements are happening as the tech industry wrestles with a surge in demand for AI capabilities and increasing pressure to shrink its environmental footprint.

“Between exponential cloud growth and changes associated with AI, we are facing a critical challenge: a power problem and an energy trilemma,” John DeBoer, head of data center vertical market at Siemens Smart Infrastructure US, said in an interview with PYMNTS.

“The energy trilemma is the balancing between energy security, energy sustainability and energy affordability.”

More efficient data centers could significantly lower energy consumption and operational costs for businesses that depend on digital infrastructure. This renewed efficiency could yield lower prices for cloud services and online transactions, leading to more growth in eCommerce and digital-based industries.