Nitride Global Inc. and OmniPower, Inc. Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Accelerate Grid Modernization Through Advanced Semiconductor Materials and HVDC Technologies

Partnership unites ultra-wide bandgap and thermal management innovation with high-voltage direct current grid architecture to unlock massive power capacity without building new generation.

WICHITA, KS and LOS ANGELES, CA, June 22, 2026 - Nitride Global, Inc. ("NGI") and OmniPower, Inc. ("OmniPower") today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing a strategic cooperation framework for the commercialization and technology development of advanced materials and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) solutions. The agreement positions both companies at the forefront of a national effort to modernize America's power grid, an infrastructure challenge that industry leaders, the U.S. Department of Energy, and major technology companies have identified as the defining bottleneck of the AI era.

A Grid at Its Breaking Point

The United States faces an unprecedented energy infrastructure crisis. U.S. electricity demand is projected to reach 4,239 billion kWh in 2026, surpassing all prior records, driven largely by the explosive growth of AI-powered data centers, electric vehicle adoption, and the onshoring of advanced manufacturing. Data center power demand alone is expected to nearly triple by 2030, reaching over 134 GW according to industry projections. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has warned of elevated risk of electricity shortfalls across all three U.S. grid interconnections through 2026 and beyond.

The consequences of inaction are stark. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has projected that total U.S. transmission capacity must reach two to three times today's levels by 2035. The U.S. Department of Energy has warned that power blackouts could increase 100-fold, reaching 800 hours annually by 2030 without decisive action. Meanwhile, the European Union and China have deployed 30 and 60 long-distance HVDC transmission lines respectively, compared to just five in the United States.

A Complementary Alliance: From Materials to Grid

Under the MOU, OmniPower and NGI will collaborate across commercialization, project origination, and technology development to bring NGI's advanced materials to market within OmniPower's HVDC deployment ecosystem. OmniPower will lead the commercialization efforts within the grid sector, leveraging its network of utilities, data center operators, national laboratories, and government stakeholders to identify and develop high-impact projects.

The partnership brings together two deeply complementary capabilities. Nitride Global is one of only four companies in the world, and the only remaining fully domestically owned entity, with expertise in aluminum nitride (AlN) crystal growth, an ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor material that the White House, DoW, and DOE have designated as critical to national interest. In addition, NGI has developed a revolutionary advanced packaging and thermal management technology based on a proprietary composition of AlON (aluminum oxynitride), which can reduce thermal resistance by up to 50% compared to current industry-standard substrates and enables up to a 50% reduction in the number of semiconductor die required per power module.

OmniPower is leading HVDC America, an initiative to execute the first nationally coordinated HVDC overhaul of the U.S. power grid. Backed by Infrastructure Masons, a coalition of over 6,000 data center builders representing 200 companies and $1.5 trillion in infrastructure across 130 countries, and supported by a letter of endorsement to the DOE's Grid Deployment Office, OmniPower's Grid-to-Chip (G2C) Partnership model unites the Department of Energy, private sector investors, energy companies, and AI industry commitments to finance and deploy HVDC corridor upgrades across the nation.

Transformative Impact: Solving the Grid Crisis at the Materials Level

Today's HVDC converter stations rely on silicon-based submodules operating at approximately 3 kV per unit, requiring thousands of submodules, massive physical footprints of 40 acres or more, and billions of dollars per corridor. The root cause is a fundamental limitation in switching voltage, dielectric strength, and thermal density inherent to silicon and conventional ceramic packaging.

The NGI-OmniPower collaboration targets a breakthrough: a 20 kV-class AlN/AlON HVDC power cell that would operate at 12.5 kV nominal, roughly four times the voltage of current state-of-the-art submodules. This represents a potential 90% reduction in the number of submodules required per converter arm, dramatically compressing station footprints, lowering capital intensity, and accelerating deployment timelines. AlN-based semiconductors offer switching losses as low as 5% of silicon, while AlON's conformal dielectric coating replaces bulky ceramic substrates with a thin, high-isolation layer that internalizes insulation coordination, eliminating the need for large air clearances and external field grading.

Beyond HVDC infrastructure, the same core innovation can deliver immediate impact across the broader power electronics landscape. Studies by Oak Ridge National Laboratory have shown that advanced wide bandgap semiconductors can reduce data center power usage by over 17%. When combined with AlN's superior efficiency, up to 65% greater than other advanced semiconductors, and AlON's thermal performance improvements, the aggregate savings potential is enormous: up to 62 TWh annually, equivalent to the electricity consumption of five million American homes and the avoidance of 32 million tons of CO2 emissions, without building a single new power plant.

Leadership Perspectives

"Modernizing America's grid is a race we cannot lose. While the EU and China have deployed dozens of HVDC corridors, the U.S. has only five. NGI's AlN and AlON technologies represent exactly the kind of materials breakthrough that can make HVDC not just viable at national scale, but economically compelling. This MOU is a critical step toward our Grid-to-Chip vision-building the enabling technology layer from the semiconductor up to the transmission line." - Henry Lee, Chief Executive Officer, OmniPower, Inc.

"The convergence of AI, electrification, and advanced manufacturing is placing extraordinary demands on a grid that was designed for a different era. This partnership with OmniPower is about ensuring that NGI's ultra-wide bandgap materials and advanced packaging technologies reach the market at the scale and speed this moment demands. Together, we can fundamentally change the equation-delivering dramatically more power through existing infrastructure by solving the problem at the materials level." - Mahyar Khosravi, P.Eng., Chief Executive Officer, Nitride Global, Inc.

The partnership also addresses a critical national security dimension. The alliance aims to reduce American dependence on foreign-sourced semiconductor materials at a time when supply chain security is paramount.