AI's Energy Crisis Has a Surprising Fix — And It's Growing in Georgia's Forests

The AI Age has an energy problem.

“Every model, every query, every real-time decision runs on energy, around the clock. Data centers are popping up faster than communities can plan for them,” says the team behind the Atlanta-based startup RevaTerra. And each data center that comes online can draw as much power as a small city.

That means the challenge now is in meeting this demand with reliable and low-carbon power.

RevaTerra, co-founded by Jude Davies (CEO) and Joe Napier (CTO), says the answer is inside forests. The company, which recently joined ATDC’s Accelerate Program, is building what it calls a new category of renewable, reliable, low-carbon fuel options that transforms waste streams from forestry mills into usable energy.

About RevaTerra’s Product

The startup, which uses the tagline Intelligent Energy, turns forestry industry products into pelletted fuel, its RevaTerra’s Arcana Bio-Coal.

Its AI-designed chemistry upgrades allows the company to create high-performance fuel, and in turn transforms existing coal infrastructure into carbon-neutral energy, according to the company’s website.

The goal is to create “secure, reliable, low-carbon power that can keep up with [our] new reality,” the team told Hypepotamus via email.

Sawmills and pellet producers can create new revenue streams by converting low-value biomass into premium energy products. Utilities and power producers can use RevaTerra to transition to using carbon-neutral fuel without having to put in a major capital investment.

Why Georgia?

Georgia is a natural place to build a startup like RevaTerra, according to Davies and Napier.

Georgia is the number one state for commercially-available timberland and the exporter of forest products. The state’s forests, and the Southeast region as a whole, are among “the most productive in the world,” according to the RevaTerra team. And while science-based management practices like thinning, prescribed harvests, and post-storm cleanup are essential to keep the forest’s ecosystem healthy, those come with a cost.

“Forest management generates residual and by-product material that working forests naturally produce through responsible stewardship, and this material doesn't always fit neatly into traditional markets. Over the years, a number of the mills and facilities that once utilized this material have slowed or closed, and the region's forests have continued to produce faster than remaining markets can absorb,” the RevaTerra team explained to Hypepotamus. “That leaves landowners in a difficult position: the responsible management work gets done, but the resulting material has limited outlets, and too often it is piled and burned, left to decompose in the field, or removed at a cost rather than a return.”

RevaTerra’s product provides a renewable bioenergy solution for this problem, giving states like Georgia a way to support AI’s growth.

After raising a small angel round in the last part of 2025, RevaTerra is currently building on its initial successful trial at commercial mills, The company’s first production pilot will take place in Georgia.

What’s next for the company? The RevaTerra team said that the remainder of 2026 is focused on “acceleration and execution,” with its priorities centered around “securing a larger physical footprint for our R&D and light-industrial facility, delivering our first large-scale Arcana production runs with partners across Georgia, and building long-term supply partnerships.”