Anthropic has joined carbon removal collective Frontier with $915 million in new funding, establishing itself as the first AI startup to join the group.
The new funding nearly doubles the amount committed to Frontier, bringing the total amount to $1.8 billion. To date, Frontier has awarded nearly $700 million in contracts for more than 50 projects that will remove 1.8 million tons of carbon. Companies that commit funding to Frontier typically use the company’s carbon removal credits to reduce their published carbon emissions.
The new funding will help strengthen Frontier’s position in the carbon removal industry, but more notable is Anthropic’s promise. Google is a founding member, but Anthropic is the first pure AI company to join. Its membership comes at a time when AI companies are hoarding energy, but not all of it has been completely clean.
Joining Frontier marks Anthropic’s first climate-related transaction. The company has not yet produced a sustainability report, but says it supports an “all of the above” approach to energy, a statement that typically leads to bulk purchases of polluting electricity. But the move could signal a change in attitude within the company.
Frontier was founded by technology companies like Stripe, Google, and Shopify to help them realize their climate pledges. Start-ups and other companies face a dilemma. Many companies want to reach zero emissions in the next 10 to 20 years, but there are some emissions that cannot be reduced right now, such as air travel. But at the same time, carbon removal was, and still is, a nascent industry where there are no companies capable of removing the necessary amounts of carbon. Frontier vets carbon removal companies and contracts with those it believes can deliver.
Carbon removal credits, like those backed by Frontier, allow companies to continue emitting some pollution. Credits can be deducted from carbon emissions in the same way that profits offset debt on a balance sheet. Frontier Veterans Project. It serves as a kind of shared resource for companies interested in carbon removal.
In announcing the new pledge, Frontier said funding for future projects would be subject to a higher level of scrutiny. The group said it would fund fewer projects, focusing on those that have the best chance of removing more than 1 gigatonne (1 billion tons) of CO2 a year. According to Frontier, the terms of the new contracts will be approximately eight to 10 years.
Founded in 2022, Frontier has supported a variety of carbon removal technologies over the years, including direct air capture, rock weathering enhancement, bio-oils, marine antacids, and bioenergy with carbon removal and sequestration.
Frontier’s shift from many small bets to a few big bets mimics what appears to be happening at Microsoft, the largest purchaser of carbon removal credits.
Companies want the carbon removal market to grow and mature, but have made it clear they don’t intend to take it on permanently. A Frontier spokesperson told TechCrunch that any new contract would require the carbon removal company to “provide a pathway to government subsidies and support.”
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says carbon removal technologies will be needed if the world is to reach net-zero emissions, but few businesses or consumers are interested in paying for them. As with clean water, this issue will almost certainly ultimately fall on governments. Frontier has announced that it will shrink by 2040.
He has not said what will happen after that, but it is clear that he hopes the government will have begun to take control by then. Are there any cases where this is not the case? If the climate continues to warm, we will face even bigger problems.
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