# **Summary** The video explores a proposed 1‑kilometer‑tall “gravity battery” tower that could become the world’s tallest structure and act as large‑scale storage for renewable energy, especially to feed power‑hungry AI data centers and electrified economies.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Core idea: a gravity tower battery The tower is essentially a pumped‑hydro system turned vertical: water or heavy masses are lifted up the tower when wind and solar produce excess electricity, then released downward later through turbines to generate power when demand is high. This adapts a century‑old gravity storage concept into a compact skyscraper‑like form that can be built near cities instead of relying on natural valleys and big dams.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Who is behind the project Swiss energy‑storage company Energy Vault is partnering with Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), known for supertall buildings like the Burj Khalifa and Willis Tower. The collaboration grew out of academic contacts at Caltech and brings together SOM’s expertise in tall‑tower engineering with Energy Vault’s gravity‑storage technology to make the system more efficient, scalable, and buildable.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Why AI drives the need The video frames AI and electrification as the trigger: a single AI data center can consume as much electricity as 100,000 homes, and global demand is surging with data centers, onshored manufacturing, and electric vehicles. If this load is met mainly with fossil fuels, climate goals and UN‑backed pledges for 100% renewable‑powered data centers by 2030 become very difficult, so new storage is described as a bottleneck solution for truly scaling wind and solar.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## How the tower works and scales Structurally, the tower is imagined as a cylindrical “soda‑can” form around 10:1 in height‑to‑width (for example 600 m tall and 60 m wide) to distribute forces efficiently with relatively little material. Because stored energy depends on mass and especially height, going taller dramatically boosts storage per square meter of land; a 1 km version could hold about 1.7 GWh, enough to power a medium‑sized city each day if cycled daily.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Design flexibility and urban integration The concept is designed to be flexible: it could stand in deserts next to solar or wind farms, or be integrated into city skylines and even combined with uses like housing or data centers inside the same structure. SOM’s pitch is that a footprint the size of a small plaza could become infrastructure that shifts power for entire districts, embedding the energy transition directly into architecture rather than only in remote facilities.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Construction, durability, and limits The tower would use slip‑form construction to pour the core continuously, potentially allowing a 300 m shaft to rise in a few months and a full tower to be completed in roughly 18–24 months under optimistic assumptions. The concrete and steel shell could last many decades, while pumps, pipes, turbines, and generators are off‑the‑shelf components expected to operate for about 50 years, with far less degradation from cycling than lithium battery farms.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ ## Where and when this might happen Early projects would likely appear where sun, wind, land, and rising AI/industrial demand coincide, such as the U.S. Southwest (Texas, Arizona, California), the Middle East, or parts of South America. However, the video stresses that no contracts are signed yet, towers over 1 km are still conceptual, first builds are unlikely before 2030, and a 1‑kilometer tower could cost over a billion dollars and take 2–5 years to construct.[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY)​ 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4i8sDV1lMY) ----