Caterpillar, one of the world's largest manufacturers of industrial equipment, has partnered with US power infrastructure developer Hunt Energy to deliver power solutions for the data center sector.

The companies will collaborate in a multi-year initiative to deliver upwards of 1GW of generation capacity for data centers in North America. The first project is expected to launch in Texas. The companies did not provide a timetable for deployment.

“This partnership with Caterpillar represents a major step forward in our commitment to delivering innovative and flexible energy solutions,” said Hunter Hunt, chief executive officer at Hunt Energy. “Starting in Texas, we’re laying the foundation for a new era of data center power infrastructure.”

As part of the partnership, Caterpillar will offer up its full suite of power solutions, including natural gas and diesel generation, gas turbines, switchgear, controls, aftertreatment, and engineering design services. The company will also provide monitoring and servicing capabilities to ensure power delivery both on and off the grid.

Hunt Energy will provide support in project financing and operational execution, as well as its experience in developing battery energy storage systems (BESS). Hunt has deployed more than 310MW of BESS over the past four years.

“Caterpillar is excited to continue to collaborate with Hunt Energy to deliver robust and efficient energy solutions for data centers," said Melissa Busen, senior vice president, Caterpillar Electric Power division.

“Hunt’s proven expertise in energy infrastructure complements Caterpillar’s leadership in power systems, enabling us to jointly develop scalable solutions that meet the high demands of reliability, uptime, and performance critical to data center operations.”

Caterpillar has been a major provider of backup generators for the data center sector for some time. Last January, it partnered with Microsoft on a successful demonstration project, which succeeded in powering a data center via hydrogen fuel cells for 48 hours to test its viability as a sustainable backup solution.

Hunt Energy is a Dallas-based distributed energy development company. The company focuses predominantly on the development and deployment of BESS assets, claiming to own and operate nearly one out of six BESS assets in ERCOT. The deal with Caterpillar appears to be its first in the data center market.