AI's Hidden Power Problem: Why Data Centers Need Different Batteries | Electrovaya CEO Raj DasGupta

Well, a g- great, great question, Wes.

So yeah, batteries are in my DNA, both from a genetic perspective, my father started Electrovaya, but also in terms of how I've spent my life, right? So I completed a PhD in material science, which was battery-related, joining Electrovaya afterwards, and really have kept, you know, I've been with the company a long time, over, over, you know, nearly two decades, and R&D has been a, a key focus of mine personally and reflected in the company, and that's is how we operate because this is a, a, it's a, a technology space which continues to evolve, continues to, uh, improve, and you have to stay with it if you're going to, uh, remain relevant.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a, a cool journey.

I love the, uh, the second generation as well too and getting involved there early.

Um, tell me about, like, what did the real world of, of just customers, manufacturing, and scale force you to unlearn that, that you never could have learned in a material science lab?

Well, the big, big piece of it is if you're just looking at it, a material science lab, you don't see the big picture.

You miss out on how batteries are used.

That's a big part of it.

Sometimes you're focused on just certain metrics like energy density, certain things that the battery researchers focus on, which is what you see in, in some of the industry, where they're just focusing on maybe a solid state battery, but they miss out on, does this battery need to last a long time? Is it gonna be safe? How is it gonna be cost competitive? So when you take this, combine the science, the engineering, and most importantly, the customer, the market-driven aspect, that's where everything comes together and where you really have to have your, your product developed for.

And I think that's where it's taken us some time, but we've, uh, Electrovaya has hit its stride in that combination of, of factors.

Yeah, absolutely.

A-again, cool journey starting in that more technical sort of environment and then learning the whole operations and business and the commercial aspect and how that all comes together to complete the whole picture.

Um, and I think that, that move from the lab into the commercial world also changes how you think about where technology can create real value and forces you to be selective because a large market and the right market are not always the same thing.

But you were working on sort of a larger, large scale stationary storage more than a decade ago, and Electrovaya later chose not to chase that market aggressively.

What did you see that, that made you step away?

Yeah, that's a great, a great point there you had on, on the ma- large market's not necessarily the right market, and that's sort of reflected in our strategy as well.

So if you just look back, you know, fifteen years ago, Electrovaya was focused on electric vehicles, uh, foremost, and, uh, we were going the right direction there.

We had a partnership with Chrysler.

A little while later, Chrysler, uh, partnership with Mercedes.

That said, on, on the energy storage as well, we were one of the early players for a bat-- you know, lithium-ion battery-powered energy storage systems, which of course today are ubiquitous and, and a massive industry.

What ended up happening in the space though was scale came behind certain players, especially large Asian, Chinese, and Korean battery manufacturers.

And that scale, that almost govern-- not almost, but government-level push that they had behind them was a factor which really no North American battery companies could compete with.

There have, of course, been a, a lot of high-profile battery companies in the U.S. that have gone under, uh, especially during, you know, in the, in that period from 2012 to, let's say, 2020.

And what we did is we pivoted to stay relevant and stay in, in the space, and that was by focusing on technology and technology that served specific niche, niche markets, uh, that we identified rather than just going wholeheartedly against the bulk.