stranded-power
(3)
Digital Power Optimization, Inc.
Digital Power Optimization (DPO) is a New York-based energy services company that builds and operates 'power-first' flexible data centers at renewable power plants. Its on-site data centers - running bitcoin mining and AI workloads - consume electricity only when it is curtailed, wasted, or undervalued, then curtail during peak demand so power can be sold back to the grid. The model lets hydro, wind, and other generators capture over $100/MWh from otherwise stranded power while helping stabilize the grid.
Hammerhead AI
Hammerhead AI is a Redwood City data center infrastructure startup that uses reinforcement learning agents to turn stranded power into usable AI compute. Its ORCA platform (Orchestrated RL Control Agents) coordinates power, cooling, and GPU workloads in real time so operators can raise token throughput by up to 30% within their existing power envelope - without waiting for new grid capacity. Founded in 2024 by former AutoGrid executives Rahul Kar and Rajeev Singh, the company emerged from stealth in November 2025 with a $10M seed round led by Buoyant Ventures.
Rahul Kar
Rahul Kar is the founder and CEO of Hammerhead AI, a Redwood City startup that uses reinforcement-learning control agents to squeeze stranded power out of AI data centers. After helping build and scale AutoGrid - the distributed-energy software pioneer acquired by Schneider Electric - Kar launched Hammerhead in November 2025 with a $10M seed round led by Buoyant Ventures. His thesis is blunt: the real bottleneck for AI is not chips or models, it is power, and most data centers run at 30-50% of their allocated capacity. Hammerhead's ORCA platform orchestrates power, cooling, and compute in real time to unlock roughly 30% more usable capacity without touching the grid.