Refiant Raises $5M to Shrink AI Energy Use 80%

AI startup Refiant has secured $5 million in seed funding from VoLo Earth Ventures to develop nature-inspired compression algorithms that reduce AI model energy requirements by over 80%. The company aims to challenge the current data center arms race, where tech giants plan to spend nearly $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Refiant recently demonstrated its technology by compressing a 120 billion-parameter model to run on a standard MacBook Pro with 12GB of RAM, retaining 95-99% of original fidelity at nearly 100 times greater energy efficiency than standard data center configurations. The startup is now in talks with companies seeking on-premises AI deployment.