New data center reference design supports liquid cooling optimized for Nvidia’s AI processors
Schneider Electric has unveiled new data center technologies designed to address the energy-intensive demands of AI systems.
The company announced a new data center reference design, co-developed with Nvidia and introduced the Galaxy VXL uninterruptible power supply (UPS), both addressing the energy and sustainability challenges driven by high demand for AI systems.
The centerpiece of the announcement is a data center reference design developed in collaboration with Nvidia that supports liquid-cooled, high-density AI clusters of up to 132 kW per rack. It is optimized for Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, the GB200 NVL72 and the Blackwell series. The goal is to simplify the design process while addressing the scalability challenges of liquid cooling.
The design includes options for liquid-to-liquid coolant distribution units (CDUs) and direct-to-chip liquid cooling. These technologies aim to enhance energy efficiency and sustainability in hyperscale, colocation and enterprise data centers.
The co-developed data center reference design. Credit: Schneider Electric, Nvidia
“Building the future of accelerated computing and AI requires speed and a bedrock foundation," said Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang.
“Our work with Schneider Electric enables customers to design the world’s technological advances on stable and resilient infrastructure. Together, we’re creating AI data centers that are purpose-built for accelerated computing, supporting complex architectures that are essential to deliver digital intelligence to every company and industry.”
Schneider Electric’s software tools, including Ecodial and EcoStruxureIT Design CFD, enable customization to meet specific workload demands while adhering to high-density infrastructure standards.
Senior vice president of Schneider Electric’s secure power and data center business in Europe, Marc Garner, explained the importance of the partnership.
“It all starts with their GPU. So many of them come to market, we need to track them so we can work on our own infrastructure around the scaling of it and make sure we're able to support the GPU that's coming to the market,” he said.
“In this reference design, we've worked with Nvidia around how we bring sustainability right to the front end of the design for the data center while still delivering high efficiency, optimization and reliability of the infrastructure itself.”
To complement its AI-ready technologies, Schneider Electric also introduced the Galaxy VXL UPS, featuring a modular design with up to 1.25 MW capacity for critical load and up to 5 MW with four units in parallel.
“Because it's smaller than the average UPS on the market, the embedded carbon in it is significantly reduced and we don't have to ship wasted space,” said Garner.
“The compact form means you get benefits all through the manufacturing process from shipping, installing and testing through to commissioning of the unit and that drives down the embedded carbon within the data center. This benefits not only the design piece but also how quick and easy it is to maintain for our field service engineers.”
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