LA Business Journal: Arbor CEO Brad Hartwig on closing the gas turbine gap

When Brad Hartwig and Andres Garcia Clark co-founded Arbor Energy in 2021, they didn’t know energy companies like theirs would one day be mobilized to cool down power-hungry data centers years later. 

The El Segundo-based company – which manufactures modular, turbine-centered power stations built to generate electricity with no operating emissions – came out of an idea to decarbonize the global economy. However, it was tapped four years later by investors to help shrink the carbon footprint of artificial intelligence-focused data centers.

Arbor Energy raised a $55 million series A round back in November as power plants accommodate artificial intelligence’s insatiable need for energy.

Right now, gas-fired turbines remain the traditional method for supplying power for data centers.

However there are only a handful of turbine manufacturers and suppliers in the world, and as demand grows, data centers are stuck waiting as long as seven years for these products. 

Arbor Energy may have an alternative. The company is building a smaller, more modular and scalable system that can grow as data center facilities expand.

Hartwig, who also serves as chief executive, hopes the result will be two-fold: these environmentally unfriendly data centers can be ever-so-slightly more carbon efficient, and sprawling data centers may take up less space by using more compact cooling systems. 

Hartwig sat down with the Business Journal to discuss their venture and the outlook for modular, fuel-flexible power stations.