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Lyten Completes $5 Billion Northvolt Takeover: Lithium-Sulfur Battery Empire Rises | Taha Abbasi
Taha Abbasi··5 min read
Lyten’s $5 Billion Battery Empire Rises From Northvolt’s Ashes
In one of the most significant battery industry acquisitions of the decade, technology executive Taha Abbasi notes that Lyten, a lithium-sulfur battery startup based in San Jose, California, has officially completed its takeover of Northvolt’s Swedish manufacturing facilities. The deal gives Lyten 16 gigawatt-hours of existing battery production capacity and assets valued at $5 billion — reshaping the European battery landscape overnight.
The acquisition includes Northvolt Ett and Ett Expansion in Skelleftea, Sweden, along with Northvolt Labs in Vasteras. Together, these facilities provide more than 160 hectares (395 acres) of land, established manufacturing infrastructure, and what Lyten describes as the largest and most advanced battery research and development center in Europe.
From Bankruptcy to Battery Powerhouse
Northvolt’s collapse was one of the most dramatic stories in European clean energy. Once valued at over $11 billion and hailed as Europe’s answer to Asian battery dominance, the company filed for bankruptcy after struggling with production ramp-ups, quality issues, and mounting cash burns. For European policymakers who had invested billions in the dream of domestic battery sovereignty, it was a devastating blow.
Enter Lyten. The company specializes in lithium-sulfur battery technology, which promises significantly higher energy density than conventional lithium-ion cells while using abundant, low-cost sulfur instead of expensive cobalt and nickel. As Taha Abbasi has consistently emphasized in his coverage of frontier technology, the companies that can scale next-generation battery chemistry will have an outsized impact on everything from EVs to grid storage to aerospace.
Lyten isn’t just acquiring manufacturing capacity — it’s acquiring a strategic foothold in Europe at a time when the continent desperately needs domestic battery production to meet its EV transition targets.
The Industrial Hub Vision
Lyten is forming what it calls the “Lyten Industrial Hub” at the Northvolt Ett site in Skelleftea. The concept goes beyond batteries. By leveraging the region’s abundant clean hydropower, Lyten plans to co-locate battery manufacturing, AI data centers, and other strategically important industrial operations.
As part of this vision, EdgeConneX, a global data center developer owned by EQT, plans to acquire a data center site from Lyten in Skelleftea. The site could scale to a 1-gigawatt data center campus, making it one of the largest data center facilities in Europe. This convergence of battery manufacturing and data center infrastructure is a fascinating development — both industries require massive power, and sharing clean energy resources makes the economics work for both.
Restarting Production: What’s Coming
Lyten says it will immediately begin restarting operations at both facilities. Northvolt Ett will produce lithium-ion NMC battery cells for battery energy storage systems (BESS), automotive, and mobility markets. Commercial cell sales from Ett are expected to begin supplying Northvolt Dwa, a BESS manufacturing facility in Poland, in the second half of 2026.
Meanwhile, Northvolt Labs in Vasteras will continue developing long-life lithium-ion NMC cells while also working with Lyten’s Silicon Valley team to industrialize lithium-sulfur battery technology for gigascale manufacturing. This dual-track approach — maintaining revenue from proven lithium-ion technology while scaling next-gen lithium-sulfur — is a pragmatic strategy that addresses both near-term market needs and long-term technological ambitions.
The Hiring Ramp and Economic Impact
The acquisition brings significant job creation. Lyten plans to hire more than 600 additional employees over the next 12 months, with continued rapid hiring for the next couple of years. For the Skelleftea and Vasteras communities that were devastated by Northvolt’s bankruptcy, this represents a crucial economic lifeline.
As Taha Abbasi observes, the broader pattern here is significant: American battery companies are increasingly looking to Europe for manufacturing capacity. The combination of established infrastructure, skilled workforces, clean energy access, and proximity to the European EV market makes these acquisitions strategically compelling.
What Lithium-Sulfur Means for the Future
Lyten’s ultimate ambition isn’t just to make more lithium-ion batteries — it’s to commercialize lithium-sulfur technology at scale. Lithium-sulfur batteries offer several theoretical advantages over conventional lithium-ion: higher energy density (potentially 2-3x), lower material costs (sulfur is abundant and cheap), and reduced environmental impact (no cobalt or nickel mining required).
The challenge has always been cycle life and stability. Lithium-sulfur cells tend to degrade faster than lithium-ion due to the polysulfide shuttle effect. But Lyten claims to have addressed many of these issues through proprietary materials science breakthroughs. If they can prove this at scale using Northvolt’s manufacturing infrastructure, it could genuinely revolutionize the battery industry.
The Bigger Picture: Battery Sovereignty
This acquisition matters beyond the balance sheet. Europe’s dependency on Asian battery manufacturers — primarily CATL, BYD, and LG — has been a major strategic concern for policymakers. The European Battery Alliance, launched in 2017, aimed to build a complete domestic battery value chain. Northvolt was its flagship project.
With Lyten now operating Northvolt’s facilities, Europe gets a second chance at battery sovereignty — albeit with American ownership. Whether that satisfies European industrial policy goals remains to be seen, but the alternative — mothballed factories and lost expertise — was clearly worse.
Taha Abbasi sees this as a defining moment for the global battery industry. The consolidation phase has begun, and the companies that emerge from it with both manufacturing scale and next-generation technology will shape the energy transition for decades to come. Lyten’s bet on lithium-sulfur, backed by $5 billion in acquired infrastructure, is one of the boldest moves in cleantech this year.
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About the Author: Taha Abbasi is a technology executive, CTO, and applied frontier tech builder. Read more on Grokpedia | YouTube: The Brown Cowboy | tahaabbasi.com
Taha Abbasi
Engineer by trade. Builder by instinct. Explorer by choice.
