Vertiv publishes Frontiers report on data center trends
Vertiv published the Vertiv Frontiers report, which identified macro forces related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and outlined trends the company said would affect data center design and operations.
The report listed four macro forces driving changes in data center planning: extreme densification, gigawatt scaling at speed, data center as a unit of compute, and silicon diversification, and it connected those forces to how facilities are designed, built, operated and serviced.
On the technical side, the report described current power distribution approaches and their limits, noting that many data centers used hybrid AC/DC systems with three to four conversion stages and associated inefficiencies as power densities rose. It detailed a move toward higher-voltage Dual Connectivity (DC) architectures to reduce current and conversion stages, and it discussed on-site generation, microgrids, digital twins, prefabricated modular designs, and the broader adoption of liquid cooling paired with monitoring and control systems.
The document drew on expertise from across the company, expanded on previous annual Data Center Trends predictions, and presented five specific trends: powering up for AI, distributed AI delivery models, energy autonomy, digital twin-driven design and operations, and adaptive, resilient liquid cooling for dense workloads.
“The data center industry is continuing to rapidly evolve how it designs, builds, operates and services data centers, in response to the density and speed of deployment demands of AI factories,” said Vertiv chief product and technology officer, Scott Armul. “We see cross-technology forces, including extreme densification, driving transformative trends such as higher voltage Dual Connectivity (DC) power architectures and advanced liquid cooling that are important to deliver the gigawatt scaling that is critical for AI innovation. On-site energy generation and digital twin technology are also expected to help to advance the scale and speed of AI adoption.”
The release included a notice that it contained forward-looking statements, indicated actual events or results may differ, and referred readers to Vertiv's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.