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The power density of data centre racks reaching one megawatt (MW) is becoming a near-term reality as the industry moves beyond racks with 100 kilowatt (KW) power density to accommodate artificial intelligence (AI), Giordano Albertazzi, CEO of global data centre solutions provider Vertiv told ET.
He also said, India is the second fastest growing market after the United States for the company. Securely housing, and cooling IT equipment like servers, storage, and networking gear, data centre racks earlier operated at 15–30 KW density, but high-performance computing (HPC), AI workloads and cloud infrastructure expansion have doubled power requirement of racks in the past 2 years.
“We’re now over 100 KW per rack, rapidly heading towards 600 KW. A megawatt rack is not far-fetched,” Albertazzi said on the sidelines of the recently concluded India AI Impact Summit. He said this presents opportunities for Vertiv, which provides essential hardware, software, and services—specifically power management, thermal cooling, and IT management—to ensure data centres run efficiently and continuously. All components of the powertrain, and thermal chain are manufactured in India across Vertiv’s units in Pune, Albertazzi said.
“We manufacture here in India, for both the domestic and export markets,” he said. AI has triggered other major shifts in data centre technology as millions of specialised silicon chips are packed into.
“At a data centre, megawatts and gigawatts of power need to be transferred from the grid to the chip, which we call the power train. This has large amounts of components: transformers, switch gears, uninterruptible power supplies, power distribution, busways etc. This entire powertrain, which is today fundamentally designed around alternative current architecture, will transition over time to high voltage direct current power, as the technology of the chip changes,” he said.
Meanwhile, the company’s position as the global liquid cooling technology leader also allows it an advantage, the CEO stressed. Higher power inputs are leading to higher heat generation by both chips, and IT equipment, leading to deployment of sophisticated thermal chains — the entire process of removing heat to maintain operational temperatures.
“In traditional data centres, this was air cooled. Now, it is increasingly shifting to liquid cooled systems,” he said. He stressed the explosive rise of AI necessitates building of facilities from scratch in India, rather than retrofitting, especially since older facilities are fully cloud loaded, he said.
He also said, India is the second fastest growing market after the United States for the company. Securely housing, and cooling IT equipment like servers, storage, and networking gear, data centre racks earlier operated at 15–30 KW density, but high-performance computing (HPC), AI workloads and cloud infrastructure expansion have doubled power requirement of racks in the past 2 years.
“We’re now over 100 KW per rack, rapidly heading towards 600 KW. A megawatt rack is not far-fetched,” Albertazzi said on the sidelines of the recently concluded India AI Impact Summit. He said this presents opportunities for Vertiv, which provides essential hardware, software, and services—specifically power management, thermal cooling, and IT management—to ensure data centres run efficiently and continuously. All components of the powertrain, and thermal chain are manufactured in India across Vertiv’s units in Pune, Albertazzi said.
“We manufacture here in India, for both the domestic and export markets,” he said. AI has triggered other major shifts in data centre technology as millions of specialised silicon chips are packed into.
“At a data centre, megawatts and gigawatts of power need to be transferred from the grid to the chip, which we call the power train. This has large amounts of components: transformers, switch gears, uninterruptible power supplies, power distribution, busways etc. This entire powertrain, which is today fundamentally designed around alternative current architecture, will transition over time to high voltage direct current power, as the technology of the chip changes,” he said.
Meanwhile, the company’s position as the global liquid cooling technology leader also allows it an advantage, the CEO stressed. Higher power inputs are leading to higher heat generation by both chips, and IT equipment, leading to deployment of sophisticated thermal chains — the entire process of removing heat to maintain operational temperatures.
“In traditional data centres, this was air cooled. Now, it is increasingly shifting to liquid cooled systems,” he said. He stressed the explosive rise of AI necessitates building of facilities from scratch in India, rather than retrofitting, especially since older facilities are fully cloud loaded, he said.