Endeavour: The Hydrogen-powered Data Centres of Tomorrow

Endeavour’s Pact system can turn natural gas and biomethane into clean hydrogen and solid carbon, powering AI data centres with carbon-neutral energy

Few things illustrate the growing pains of AI better than the race for reliable, low-carbon energy.

This tug of war is currently taking place across the global data centre sector. According to the IEA’s most recent estimates, data centres consumed 1.5% of the world’s electricity, but that figure is projected to rise to 3% by the year 2030.

>> In Other News: Oregon Forests on Track to Become Net Carbon Source by 2029, Analysis Warns

Catering to such rapidly increasing demand without adding to global emissions has thus far proved a formidable task.

That said, Endeavour, a New York-based infrastructure innovation firm, believes it may have found a solution.

The firm has created a new technology called Pact, which it says can deliver a steady supply of clean hydrogen fuel while converting carbon by-products into valuable materials.

A leap in hydrogen production

So, how exactly does Pact work? Endeavour says that Pact is a continuous-flow, closed-loop methane cracking system which is designed to deliver hydrogen at a lower cost and a lower carbon intensity than electrolysis-based “green” hydrogen.

While hydrogen was once touted as the panacea for the energy transition, its star has fallen in recent years due to the huge amounts of energy required to turn it into a usable fuel. With Pact, Endeavour will hope to change that.

One thing that makes Endeavour's approach to hydrogen production distinct is the way it treats carbon. Unlike traditional hydrogen production, which releases large amounts of CO₂, Pact instead captures carbon and turns it into solid graphite.

Jakob Carnemark, CEO and Founder of Endeavour, says the technology addresses a critical bottleneck: “There have been few low-carbon options that can be deployed quickly at the scale and cost needed for AI campuses and heavy industry. The Pact system fills that gap.”

Jakob also says that Pact is the first technology to supply clean hydrogen for AI data centres and other energy-intensive infrastructure while simultaneously creating carbon-based materials. The hope is that these by-products could play a part in decarbonising sectors far beyond computing.

Carbon turned to opportunity

At the heart of Pact is a low-temperature catalytic reactor developed over a decade of research. Methane (sourced from natural gas or biomethane) is passed through the reactor, where hydrogen is extracted and the remaining carbon is immediately converted to solid graphite.

Because this closed-loop process eliminates direct carbon emissions and avoids the heavy power demands of electrolysis, it is able to yield hydrogen with a smaller greenhouse gas footprint across its lifecycle.

The system has undergone testing with EBNER, a manufacturer recognised for its industrial hydrogen expertise, at the firm's US facility in Wadsworth, Ohio.

Herbert Gabriel, Managing Director of EBNER, sees this as a watershed moment for the sector. “This is an important milestone for the hydrogen industry," he says. "The Pact system dramatically reduces the environmental footprint of conventional fossil-based hydrogen and overcomes the scalability challenges of electrolysis-based systems.”

Building a carbon materials platform

Beyond hydrogen, the technology’s by-product (a fine, highly pure graphite) opens a new commercial frontier.

Juzer Jangbarwala, Pact’s Chief Technology Officer and the system’s inventor, says this carbon handling strategy turns what would otherwise be waste into a new class of industrial materials.

“Instead of storing carbon or releasing it into the atmosphere, Pact is creating the foundation for a carbon materials platform backed by a growing patent portfolio of clean chemical synthesis and functionalisation technologies,” he says.

These materials could feed industries ranging from advanced semiconductors to concrete manufacturing and electrical transmission. Endeavour argues that when such domestic carbon products displace imported graphite, the overall process becomes not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative.

Designed for scale

Endeavour envisions Pact operating alongside its existing power systems. The technology can be linked directly to generators, such as the company’s TurboCell units, allowing hydrogen to be produced only as needed (avoiding many of the logistical headaches of storage and transport that have hindered hydrogen adoption).

The modular system, compact in size, can serve installations as small as 5MW or scale up to gigawatt levels (capacity more commonly associated with regional energy supply).

Meeting the needs of an AI-powered world

As AI continues to reshape global industry, the infrastructure supporting it will increasingly determine the sector’s environmental footprint. Endeavour’s Pact system offers a technologically robust but economically grounded approach to a clean power source that can run continuously.

Whether it can deliver at industrial scale remains to be tested outside trial settings, but for now, it signals a pragmatic shift in the clean hydrogen race (from theoretical sustainability targets towards practical, deployable solutions built to power the age of AI).