Parallax exits stealth with $117m fundraise for data-centre gas turbines
What's the deal? Parallax has exited stealth and raised $75 million in a Series A led by Greylock Partners and General Catalyst, with Diffusion also participating. The round brings the startup's total funding to $117 million, including a $42 million seed from Eclipse alongside Lux Capital and Founders Fund.
What's the endgame? The company is building a gas turbine designed from scratch for data centres — roughly 10MW of output, small enough to fit in a shipping container. It aims to build a prototype by year-end, test through next year, and deliver to customers in 2028.
Why now? Power, not chips, is the real bottleneck for AI data centres. New grid connections take years, and existing turbine makers are booked into the 2030s; SemiAnalysis estimates the gap between committed compute demand and available power exceeds 65GW.
What's different? Rather than chase maximum efficiency with scarce materials, Parallax lowered combustion temperatures to eliminate two supply chokepoints: single-crystal blades, sourced from just two suppliers, and rhenium superalloys, of which only 60 tonnes are produced worldwide each year. It also used 3D printing to cut a turbine core of over 2,000 parts down to a handful.
Founder Carl Schoeller, a Stanford-trained mechanical engineer whose earlier component designs shipped in Tesla's Cybertruck and Apple products, told The Wall Street Journal : "We're not designing for utilities or aircraft, just for this one customer."
Eclipse chief executive officer Lior Susan told the same outlet the market is "starved" because neither chipmakers nor the power industry can supply what AI data centres need. He likened Parallax's part-slashing approach to how SpaceX builds rocket engines.
What could go wrong? The field is crowded. Elon Musk bought mobile-turbine firm APR Energy for about $1 billion and is building a Texas blade-casting plant; GE VernovaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → already powers xAI's ColossusDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and a Microsoft site with aeroderivative turbines; and Generac disclosed a backup-generator deal with Amazon worth up to $8 billion. Others are bypassing the grid with on-site plants or turning to nuclear.
The signal: Investor money is flooding into the physical infrastructure behind AI, not just the models and chips. With nuclear small modular reactors unlikely before 2030, gas turbines have become the near-term fix — and Parallax's 2028 target puts it in the race to close a widening power gap.
Read more: wowtale.net
Image credit: Parallax
