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Amazon To Test AI-Created Material For Carbon Capture In Data Centers

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

December 4, 2024

Amazon is stepping up its environmental efforts by testing a groundbreaking carbon-removal material for its data centers. The company, which is tackling the growing emissions linked to the artificial intelligence systems powering these centers, has partnered with Orbital Materials, a startup that used AI to design the innovative substance.

Jonathan Godwin, CEO of Orbital Materials, explained that the new material acts like an atomic-level sponge, with cavities precisely sized to capture CO2 without interacting with other elements. This targeted approach could be a game-changer in carbon filtration.

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One of the appealing aspects of the new material is its cost-effectiveness. Godwin estimates that the material could account for just 10% of the cost associated with renting a GPU chip for AI training, significantly less than the price of traditional carbon offsets.

Meanwhile, the demand for energy in data centers is rising, as AI’s rapid development requires more power and cooling solutions. This surge poses a challenge for Amazon, which is committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud provider by revenue, plans to begin piloting the AI-designed carbon removal material in one of its data centers starting in 2025. This initiative is part of a three-year collaboration with Orbital, which will also gain access to AWS’s technology and open-source AI tools for further development.

Howard Gefen, General Manager of AWS Energy & Utilities, stated that the partnership would promote sustainable innovation, but financial details remain undisclosed. Orbital, with offices in Princeton, New Jersey, and London, began its journey about a year ago by setting up a lab to synthesize AI-designed materials. The startup aims to work with AWS to test additional AI-generated solutions, addressing water usage and cooling requirements in data centers. Godwin co-founded Orbital, which currently employs 20 people and is supported by investors such as Radical Ventures and Nvidia’s venture arm. Before this, Godwin contributed to materials science work at Alphabet’s DeepMind until 2022.

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Bending Spoons Buys Miro As SaaS Valuations Continue To Reset

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

September 10, 2026

Bending Spoons is buying Miro for $1.36 billion in cash, implying an equity value of $1.79 billion. That is about 90% below the workplace collaboration company’s $17.5 billion valuation in late 2021.

From Digital Whiteboard To AI Workspace

Founded in 2011 as RealtimeBoard, Miro began as a digital whiteboarding tool for remote teams. Demand surged during the pandemic, helping the company expand from about five million users to roughly 30 million between 2020 and 2022.

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Miro later added more than 250 integrations and partnerships with Atlassian, Cisco, Microsoft and Zoom. Today, it describes itself as an “AI innovation workspace,” offering AI assistants, prototyping tools and integrations with GitHub, Jira and Slack.

Growth Slowed After The Pandemic

Miro now has more than four million paying customers and 100 million total users, with about $600 million in annual recurring revenue. Businesses and enterprises generate roughly 90% of revenue, while the company has about $435 million in net cash and is profitable.

Its valuation decline reflects a broader reset in SaaS markets. As pandemic-driven demand faded, companies cut software spending and consolidated overlapping tools, increasing pressure on stand-alone collaboration platforms competing with broader ecosystems from companies such as Microsoft, Canva and Figma.

Bending Spoons Targets Mature Software

Miro has also reduced its workforce since reaching about 1,200 employees in 2022, cutting 119 positions in February 2023 and another 275 in October 2024, according to its CEO.

The acquisition fits Bending Spoons’ broader strategy of buying established software companies whose valuations have fallen but whose recurring revenue and user bases remain substantial. It previously agreed to acquire Airtable for $1.28 billion after the company had been valued above $11 billion in 2021.

For Bending Spoons, the strategy is a bet on durable revenue and profitability rather than the rapid-growth expectations that drove software valuations during the pandemic.