Peter A. Panfil, Global Vice President of Power, Vertiv, discusses the main energy challenges in Latin America in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Generative Artificial Intelligence is poised to become a US$1.3 billion business by 2032. According to Bloomberg, this phenomenon will boost sales in various technology segments – from hardware to video games.
Undoubtedly, this expansion will also bring an increase in high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, with an estimated growth of 11.18% over the next five years, according to Mordor Intelligence.
But what does this mean for energy supply? With more workloads comes more power fluctuations that challenge data center infrastructure. This is where reliable power supply becomes important. This essential system ensures the uninterrupted and safe operation of power systems, using a robust set of technologies known as powertrains.
Reliable power supply
Reliable power supply is based on a full suite of technologies that work to ensure a constant flow of electricity to data centers. Let’s look at the role of each of these technologies:
Electrical grid or renewable energy source: This is where the power supply to the data center infrastructure comes from.
Automatic Transfer Switch: Transfers without interruption to backup power sources in the event of a primary power failure, ensuring continuous operation. In addition to the UPS, these backup power sources include:
- Fuel cells: They run on hydrogen and can act as primary or redundant power sources.
- Long-lasting batteries: Offer greater power capacity and resilience than traditional UPS batteries.
Critical electrical panel: The first line of defense against external failures, such as mains voltage fluctuations or short circuits, by directing power supply to the data center network.
UPS: Provide backup of critical power during power outages. They also serve as a buffer, filtering out any fluctuations or spikes in voltage coming from the power grid. They resort to the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) when the power grid goes down.
BESS: Amortizes energy and smooths out supply variations in the short term. Just like UPS, it can also store energy as a backup for a given area.
Static Transfer Switch: It provides the immediate transfer of electrical charges between power sources, thus maintaining a continuous and reliable power supply.
Power Distribution Units (PDU) and Remote Panel: Efficiently distribute power to multiple compute nodes and storage systems.
Buses Shielded and Rack PDUs: Deliver power to IT equipment, accurately meeting the demand of installed computing resources.
AI and HPC reshape data centers
AI workloads are reshaping the dynamics of energy in IT, adding new challenges to power grid capacity and complexity to operations. Despite increasing rack densities, data center technologies and power infrastructure remain the same.
This situation challenges the data center industry to ensure that all assets in the powertrain deliver power from the power grid seamlessly. Therefore, choosing the right UPS system can help data center operators manage the power load generated by HPC applications and the high data demand from AI.