Beijing, China, December 6, 2024 - Recently, Schneider Electric, a global expert in digital transformation in energy management and automation, announced the accelerated launch of a series of end-to-end AI-ready data center solutions to address the energy issues and sustainability challenges brought about by the continued rise in AI demand.
First, Schneider Electric and NVIDIA released a new data center reference design, which supports cabinet power density up to 132 kW, high-density artificial intelligence clusters suitable for liquid cooling, and is specially optimized for NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 and Blackwell chips. Relying on this mature and proven reference design framework, the planning and deployment process can be greatly simplified, effectively addressing the unique challenges of large-scale application of liquid cooling technology.
In addition, Schneider Electric also announced the launch of the new Galaxy VXL UPS, an industry-leading high-power density UPS tailored for artificial intelligence, data centers and high-power loads. Compared with the industry average, the Galaxy VXL UPS has a 52% smaller footprint and a power density of up to 1042 kW/m². This scalable 1.25 MW modular design UPS has a smaller footprint, higher power density, and higher overall efficiency.
The two innovative achievements released this time are important components of Schneider Electric's end-to-end AI-ready data center solution. The solution will focus on three key areas, including: developing energy strategies adapted to the AI era, deploying advanced digital infrastructure, and providing sustainable development consulting services, aiming to help data center owners and operators deploy high-efficiency, high-density digital infrastructure and promote the sustainable development of AI workloads in all aspects.
Pankaj Sharma, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Key Power Business at Schneider Electric, said: "The impact of AI on energy and the environment is growing at an unprecedented rate. Industries and enterprises urgently need to accelerate the green transformation of digital infrastructure such as data centers to curb the growth of energy consumption. At Schneider Electric, we are committed to breaking through technological boundaries, setting new industry standards, and shaping the future of artificial intelligence while protecting the environment. This requires us to adopt a comprehensive and far-reaching strategic layout from power grids to chips, to cold sources, and even in a wider range of fields."
Schneider Electric and NVIDIA
Schneider Electric and NVIDIA have jointly developed a new data center reference design tailored for liquid-cooled AI clusters to address the challenges faced by hyperscale, hosting and enterprise-level data centers in deploying liquid cooling solutions.
The reference design integrates liquid-liquid CDU and cold plate liquid cooling systems, and adopts a comprehensive mechanical and electrical design approach to ensure that future AI data centers can achieve efficient and sustainable operations.
The reference design was developed with the help of Schneider Electric's advanced software tools such as Ecodial and EcoStruxure™ IT Design CFD, which can be customized according to the specific needs of AI workloads, helping users to achieve the needs of high-density applications through more sustainable and energy-efficient infrastructure design.
"Building the future of accelerated computing and AI requires not only rapid development but also a solid foundation," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Through our collaboration with Schneider Electric, we can enable customers to shape the future world on a more reliable and resilient infrastructure. Together, we are building AI data centers designed for accelerated computing to support complex architectures, which is critical to the digital transformation and intelligent development of industries and enterprises."
End-to-end AI-ready data center solutions
At this cloud conference, Schneider Electric officially announced that it will create a comprehensive, sustainable, end-to-end AI-ready data center solution to help customers achieve green transformation of digital infrastructure anywhere in the world. These solutions will focus on the following three key areas
Energy strategy in the AI era: Schneider Electric supports enterprises to use a variety of energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen to obtain renewable energy and optimize on-site power generation. According to the customer's deployment plan, it can provide professional services such as site selection and geographic analysis to ensure the availability, reliability, resilience and sustainability of high-quality electricity.
Advanced digital infrastructure solutions: Schneider Electric has launched a complete digital infrastructure product portfolio with high power density and high energy efficiency to meet the needs of AI applications with a single rack power consumption of more than 100kW. The portfolio covers data center infrastructure from power grid to chip, from chip to cold source, monitoring and energy management software, and digital optimization services throughout the life cycle.
As the latest member of the company's end-to-end advanced infrastructure portfolio, Schneider Electric's Galaxy VXL UPS provides customers with a scalable 125 kW/3U power module for the first time, with a footprint of only 1.2 m2, a single-unit power density of up to 1.25 MW, and can support 4 UPSs running in parallel, which can achieve 5 MW of power output in a 4.8 m2 space.
In addition, in order to meet the cooling challenges brought by high-density workloads, Schneider Electric recently signed an acquisition agreement to acquire a majority stake in Motivair, thereby strengthening its liquid cooling technology and product layout and consolidating the company's professional position in cold plate liquid cooling and high-capacity thermal energy solutions.
Efficiency and Sustainability: Schneider Electric's Sustainability Consulting business provides customers with customized sustainability strategies, emission assessments, and supplier engagement programs to help customers achieve and exceed their carbon reduction goals. Schneider Electric's global sustainability consulting team consists of 2,400 experts from more than 100 countries, providing customers with data-driven and accurate insights based on EcoStruxure Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Consultants.
Reshaping the AI energy consumption curve
Schneider Electric actively adopts advanced technologies and scientific methods to reshape the AI energy consumption curve, relying on energy intelligent transformation to promote the sustainable development of AI. An important prerequisite for achieving this goal is the deep integration of data center infrastructure and AI applications.
In this way, all walks of life can not only reduce AI energy consumption, but also use AI monitoring capabilities and insights to further promote the green transformation process. The realization of this vision requires the industry to work together to deploy sustainable solutions and make full use of AI potential to improve efficiency.
Sean Graham, research director of IDC's cloud-to-edge data center trends, said: "By 2027, data centers are expected to account for 2.5% of global electricity consumption, with the remaining 97.5% distributed in industries such as buildings, manufacturing, transportation and energy. As the data center industry grows rapidly, pursuing net zero carbon goals has become an important mission for the industry, but to truly achieve sustainable development, the key is to use AI technology to promote green transformation of the entire value chain of the industry. Just like the cooperation between Schneider Electric and NVIDIA, continuing to promote deep cooperation and innovation is of great significance to improving efficiency and achieving sustainable development."
For more information on the new reference design jointly developed by Schneider Electric and NVIDIA, Galaxy VXL UPS or end-to-end AI-ready data center solutions, please stay tuned and visit Schneider Electric's official website.