The AI buildout shows no signs of slowing. Demand for energy by hyperscalers is so great that BloombergNEF upped its 2035 energy demand forecast for US data centers by 83% since December, to 194 gigawatts. The boom is driving billions into clean power and related technologies (for background, (see “Pulling climate tech to commercial scale with the energy demand from data centers”).
That helped lift climate tech investment to its strongest first half since 2022. Companies developing clean energy, electric vehicles, green data centers and climate-risk technologies received $26 billion from venture investors in the first half of 2026, up 55% from a year earlier, according to a new report from climate data provider Currence (formerly Sightline).
Clean-powered data center developers captured 34% of all global climate tech funding, up from just 3% a year ago, led by DayOne’s $4.5 billion Series C round and NScale’s $2 billion round.
Mixed message
Climate tech exits are back as well. Some 152 climate companies were acquired or went public, including IPOs from geothermal developer Fervo Energy and nuclear company X-energy, which raised record sums for their sectors. The recovery across the broader climate tech market remains uneven:
Deal count fell 25% to a five-year low as investors wrote bigger checks to fewer companies. Equity investments into carbon credit companies collapsed 61% to its weakest half since 2020, while adaptation tech saw some of its largest deals to date.
