A Strategic Investment for AI Infrastructure

Orbital Industries, a London-based company specializing in the development of industrial hardware and infrastructure systems, has announced the closing of a $50 million Series B funding round. The investment was led by Plural, with participation from existing investors including NVentures, Radical Ventures, Compound, and Fly Ventures. This capital is earmarked to enhance the company's ability to scale its data center products, expand its AI and engineering teams, and accelerate the development of industrial applications beyond data center infrastructure.

Founded by Jonathan Godwin, James Gin-Pollock, and Daniel Miodovnik, Orbital Industries is dedicated to applying artificial intelligence to accelerate the design, testing, and commercialization processes of physical technologies. The company's approach, termed an “AI industrial” model, integrates materials discovery, engineering, and manufacturing into a single system. The objective is to significantly reduce development timelines and enable smaller engineering teams to create industrial technologies more efficiently.

Innovation for High-Density Data Centers

Orbital Industries' initial focus is on data center infrastructure, through its commercial division, Orbital IT. This unit specifically targets cooling and deployment systems for high-density AI computing environments. With the continuous growth of AI workloads, data centers face increasing pressure regarding power consumption, heat management, and deployment speed. Traditional cooling systems, in fact, are approaching their technical limitations, necessitating innovative solutions.

To address these challenges, the company has developed a dielectric cooling fluid and a refrigeration system designed for next-generation GPUs and high-density compute environments. According to Orbital Industries, the fluid is free from PFAS chemicals and was developed using its proprietary materials discovery platform. Underlying these products is Orb, the company’s simulation engine, designed to model the quantum mechanical behavior of atoms at scale. This system enables significantly faster materials simulations compared to traditional approaches, accelerating industrial product development.

Ready-to-Deploy Modules and Data Sovereignty

In addition to cooling systems, Orbital Industries is developing modular data center infrastructure, intended to reduce deployment timelines for new compute capacity. These systems are manufactured off-site and delivered as ready-to-deploy units, accelerating the rollout of AI infrastructure. For organizations evaluating on-premise deployment of Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI workloads, solutions like these offer significant advantages. The ability to rapidly install pre-assembled infrastructure can reduce TCO and time-to-market, crucial elements for maintaining control over data sovereignty and compliance, especially in air-gapped environments.

Jonathan Godwin, co-founder and CEO of Orbital Industries, emphasizes how advancements in AI are allowing smaller teams to move quickly from scientific discovery to commercial hardware development. “Frontier AI gives us PhD-level expertise across every discipline, meaning small, agile teams can move from materials discovery to commercial hardware in a way that simply wasn't possible before. What used to take a decade, we can now do in months. We're starting with some of the most pressing challenges in data centers, but the scope of what this approach can unlock is much, much bigger.”

Future Prospects and Industry Impact

The $50 million funding will enable Orbital Industries to solidify its position in the AI data center infrastructure market. The expansion of AI and engineering teams is crucial for sustaining continuous innovation and exploring new industrial applications outside the data center sector. This approach, which integrates materials science with AI-driven engineering, promises to revolutionize not only how data centers are built and managed but also the broader development of industrial technologies. The emphasis on efficiency, deployment speed, and advanced thermal management positions Orbital Industries as a key player for companies seeking robust and scalable solutions for their on-premise AI workloads.