On 4 September 2026, Shifter, the Norwegian technology and startup outlet, published a story about Planck in its Gründer section, written by Kristine Askvik. The starting point was the 200 applicants for our latest job opening. From there, the story turned to two expensive problems and how we approach them.
Moving gas and cooling data centres
Moving gas is expensive, and part of the reason is that the materials used to store it were never designed for the systems they run in. By our own figures, adsorbent-based storage can reach the same capacity at roughly a third of the pressure, which cuts the cost of tanks, compressors and infrastructure. The catch is that a material that looks best in the lab can heat up as it adsorbs and underdeliver in a real cycle. Cooling data centres has the same problem in reverse, and data centres are growing fast. In April 2025, the IEA projected that their electricity demand worldwide would more than double by 2030, to around 945 TWh.
Designing both at once
We tackle both in the same way, by designing the material and the system together, with AI doing the search across a very large number of candidates. The platform starts from more than 100,000 simulation-ready structures, checks supply-chain risk and stability first and then simulates the candidates that are left inside the real industrial process they're meant for.
Where AI fits in
Speaking to Shifter, our Founder & CEO, Dr. Maryam Ghadrdan, made the point that AI doesn't have to be a layer on top of a company. It can go deep into it. At Planck, AI is how the core design work gets done. Data-centre cooling, a project we're working on now, would bring the same co-design approach to a new kind of system.
Join us
A big thank you to everyone who applied. It's encouraging to see so much interest in the problems we work on. Whether or not a role is posted, we're always interested in hearing from exceptional computational chemists, machine learning engineers and process modellers.
The full story, in Norwegian, is on Shifter: “Startup fikk 200 søkere”, by Kristine Askvik.
Interested in working with us? Send an open application to contact@planck-tech.no.