WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CALIF. & DENVER -- Energy Vault Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NRGV) (“Energy Vault”), a global leader in grid-scale energy storage solution infrastructure, and Crusoe, the industry’s first vertically-integrated AI infrastructure provider, announced a strategic framework agreement for the phased deployment of Crusoe Spark modular data centers at Energy Vault’s technology center in Snyder, Texas. The initial program is scalable up to 25 megawatts (MW) of total load to be operated inside Crusoe’s proprietary Spark modular AI factory product. The companies plan to begin deployments in 2026, enabling Crusoe Cloud to expand available computing capacity, including its new Managed Inference services, to meet customer demand. The initiative represents a significant expansion of Crusoe’s Spark program, a demonstration of rapidly deployable modular AI inference capacity, and a continuation of Crusoe’s commitment to innovative energy-first AI infrastructure development.

Under the multi-year framework, Energy Vault will provide modular “powered shell” infrastructure designed to enable fast, repeatable deployment of the electrical and mechanical systems required for high-density compute. Energy Vault will deploy Crusoe’s Spark units with the first deployment planned at Energy Vault’s technology realization site in Snyder, Texas. Together, Energy Vault and Crusoe will leverage the combination of a powered site and a modular deployment model, with the goal of materially reducing delivery timelines and enabling scalable expansion as customer demand grows.

The AI infrastructure market is increasingly defined by speed. As compute demand accelerates, customers face constraints that can impact delivery timelines - including power availability, interconnection timelines, electrical system complexity, and the operational requirements of high-density compute. Energy Vault’s modular “powered shell” deployments using Crusoe Spark modular AI factories, paired with its proven strengths in disciplined execution and digital operating capabilities, have been designed to significantly shorten time-to-capacity while maintaining high reliability for customers in the data center market.

“Crusoe is executing against a clear market imperative: customers need scalable compute delivered quickly and reliably,” said Robert Piconi, CEO and Chairman, Energy Vault. “Our role is to provide the critical energy infrastructure foundation - the ‘powered shell’ - that enables rapid installation and stable operations. This agreement marks an important milestone for Energy Vault as we establish a commercial platform in AI infrastructure to complement our Asset Vault platform while expanding our build-own-operate strategy into a new, high-growth segment.”

As a vertically integrated provider, Crusoe designs and manufactures its proprietary Crusoe Spark units to provide a consistent, high-quality AI infrastructure that modularly expands Crusoe Cloud capacity. By combining this modular technology with Energy Vault’s proven ability to engineer and operate mission-critical energy systems, the parties can meet Crusoe Cloud’s requirements for high-availability power and accelerated delivery timelines. This integrated approach is designed to leverage repeatable digital controls and modular infrastructure to significantly reduce time-to-capacity while ensuring the reliability and scalability essential for enterprise AI customers.

“By manufacturing Spark units and partnering with the talented team at Energy Vault, we are furthering Crusoe’s vision of vertically-integrated, energy-first AI infrastructure,” said Cully Cavness, Co-Founder, President and Chief Strategy Officer at Crusoe. “This project demonstrates the potential for modular AI factories across applications such as distributed low-latency inference, on-premise deployments, grouped training clusters, data-sovereignty deployments and many more potential use cases. We are also very proud to work alongside Energy Vault, a partner that shares our commitment to solving the power constraints of the AI era through focused execution and technology innovation.”

This strategic partnership with Crusoe is expected to strengthen Energy Vault’s comprehensive “Own & Operate” business model, supported by its Asset Vault platform, which has been expanded with today’s announcement to address the AI infrastructure market through long-term, contracted “powered shell” deployments. Energy Vault expects AI infrastructure deployments to deliver a step-change in unit economics, including meaningfully higher EBITDA per MW (~10-20x) installed relative to traditional infrastructure projects, driven by contracted cash flows, standardized and repeatable modular design, and strong demand for rapidly deployable compute capacity. This expansion is set to rapidly accelerate the pace and scale of EBITDA growth as deployments ramp and additional sites and customers are commercialized.