Solar-powered iLamp turns the humble lamppost into an AI hub

(Image credit: iLamp)

The iLamp is a solar-powered streetlight that doubles as a low-energy, off-grid AI data center
It aims to reduce AI’s massive electricity and water usage by distributing computation across city infrastructure
Conflow Power is already rolling out iLamp deals worth millions, including safety tech for thousands of Florida schools

A British greentech firm has built something that looks like a streetlight, but acts more like a climate-conscious brain. The iLamp, developed by Conflow Power Group, is a solar-powered lighting system that doubles as a distributed AI data center. But it doesn’t plug into the grid.

It may seem unassuming, but the iLamp arrives at a critical moment. According to the International Energy Agency, artificial intelligence data centers are already consuming 415 terawatt-hours of electricity annually. That number is projected to more than double by 2030, to around 945 TWh, more than the total annual electricity use of many medium-sized countries. Against this backdrop, the idea of a self-sufficient solar pole that handles both lighting and AI computing has obvious appeal.

The core idea is to take common streetlights and turn them into a network of intelligent, solar-powered micro data centers. Each iLamp runs off a self-cleaning solar panel, capable of generating between 200 and 600 watts depending on local conditions and uses only 80 watts to function, leaving more than enough surplus to power built-in Nvidia Jetson AI processors, which sip a modest 15 watts each.

"While tech giants scramble to build nuclear power stations to feed their AI addiction, we've built something smarter. Right now, in order to power AI, the likes of OpenAI or Google Gemini need a huge building full of GPUs and they have to pump massive amounts of electricity into it, along with a huge water supply for the cooling system. This is inefficient and we need a smart solution," Edward Fitzpatrick, Director of Conflow Power. “There are streetlights everywhere in our towns and cities. By replacing them with iLamps fitted with Nvidia Jetson processors, you create a huge distributed data centre which is clean, non-water-hungry and low latency because the servers are near to the users. We are already in advanced negotiations with several large companies and world governments to make this a reality.”

AI streetlights

AI providers pay to use the compute power embedded in each iLamp. That means instead of facing a mounting energy bill, municipalities and private operators can earn income from their lighting infrastructure.

Conflow Power has adopted a license-based business model. Territories are divided up and licensed out exclusively, letting local partners develop their own markets. Last year, Conflow sold the exclusive Florida license to iLamp Florida LLC for $45 million. Last month, that license was split again, this time to iLamp Secure Inc., which paid $80 million for a 50-year deal to equip 4,400 Florida schools with safety-enhanced iLamps. That single deployment carries an estimated addressable market value of $777 million.

Those particular units are more than just light and compute: they include AI-enabled gunshot detection, license plate and facial recognition, early fire and smoke alerts, vehicle speed tracking, and private wireless connectivity. Conflow is also working to outfit UK and French rugby clubs with a new version of the iLamp designed for athletic performance. These poles come equipped with AI-powered tactical cameras and training-friendly lighting.

Of course, not everyone is going to pay for the smart lamp, no matter how green or clever it is. And there are questions to answer about surveillance, especially as facial recognition and license plate scanning are increasingly shown to be tools prone to abuse.

But what the iLamp suggests is that we may not need to build our AI future from scratch. We may just need to retrofit the parts of our cities that are already standing there and are ready to do more.

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Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for TechRadar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He's since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he's continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.

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