Singapore, July 25 - Singapore-headquartered AI cloud

provider Sustainable Metal Cloud (SMC) is planning to expand

globally as its sees fast-growing demand for its energy saving

technology, its CEO said on Thursday.

"Due to client demand, we're looking to expand in EMEA

(Europe Middle East and Africa) and North America," CEO and

co-founder Tim Rosenfield said.

The startup, a partner of AI chip giant Nvidia ( NVDA ),

already operates what it calls "sustainable AI factories" in

Australia and Singapore and is set to launch in India and

Thailand.

Its clients in Singapore, where it operates over 1,200 of

Nvidia's ( NVDA ) high-end H100 AI chips, include Facebook owner Meta

who uses SMC's cloud to run its Llama 2 AI model.

While most data centres depend on air cooling technology,

SMC uses immersion technology, submerging servers from Dell

fitted with GPUs (graphics processing units) from

Nvidia ( NVDA ) in a synthetic oil called polyalphaolefin to draw heat

away faster.

The technology behind the approach reduces energy

consumption by up to 50% compared to traditional air cooling,

according to the CEO.

Demand for AI is expected to increase 10-fold compared with

2023, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The electricity consumption of data centres globally is

expected to top 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026, roughly equivalent

to Japan's total annual consumption, the IEA said in March.

SMC is currently raising $400 million in equity and $550

million in debt according to a source with direct knowledge of

the matter.

The company declined to comment. The fundraising was first

reported by Bloomberg.