FEATURE
We’ re also seeing changes in rack designs, including the introduction of sidecars. Sidecars expand the overall footprint available for power distribution, which can provide some relief when accommodating higher power requirements.
Another important consideration is the increasing competition for overhead space. Previously, lower-density racks relied primarily on air cooling. Today, we’ re seeing much greater adoption of liquid cooling in data centers.
That introduces additional infrastructure into the white space and makes space planning even more challenging. Everything is becoming more densely packed, so operators need to be very careful about where they position equipment.
This is why plug-in space has become so valuable and why specifying the right plug-in units for each application is essential to making the best use of the available space.
The number and size of circuits and power connections are only going to increase. That means operators, designers and manufacturers need to be much more strategic about how power is routed, what equipment is specified and how redundancy is designed.
All these factors need to be considered to ensure that the available space is used as efficiently as possible.
How do you see power distribution architectures continuing to evolve as AI and HPC workloads push data centers toward even higher rack densities? Are we heading toward a fundamentally different architecture?
I believe so. I expect sidecars to become more prevalent because they provide additional flexibility when routing power to the rack.
As rack-level power requirements increase, how is the way data centers deliver power from the busway to individual racks evolving?
It’ s changing dramatically, and this ties back to the space issue.
We essentially have the same amount of physical space, but the power requirements have increased significantly. What we’ re seeing between the busway and the rack is a growing number of circuits being routed into a single rack space, which in many cases is still around 24 inches wide.
The whips, or flexible power connections, being routed into these spaces are also getting larger because they need to carry higher currents and deliver more power.
In some cases, we’ re seeing as many as eight whips, representing eight circuits, going into a single rack space. I expect that number to increase further over the coming years.
Sidecars, as I mentioned, also provide additional space for routing power connections, though they take up more room in the aisle.
Ultimately, we’ re trying to deliver significantly more power within essentially the same footprint.
We essentially have the same amount of physical space, but the power requirements have increased significantly.
Although they take up more physical space, they also give operators a little more breathing room when accommodating higher power requirements.
I think we’ ll see greater adoption of these solutions over the coming years. However, one of the biggest changes will continue to be the exponential increase in rack power requirements.
That means we’ re going to see larger circuits, a greater number of circuits or a combination of both. This will create additional challenges for vendors and designers, and addressing those challenges will require considerable coordination across the industry.
I think one of the most significant developments over the next year or two could be the early adoption of 800-volt DC busway distribution directly to the rack. Instead of converting power at the rack, we could begin to see architectures that distribute 800-volt DC power directly to IT equipment.
I don’ t know exactly what rack power threshold will drive that transition, but I believe it’ s something we’ re going to start seeing as rack densities continue to increase. Getting there will require considerable work because vendors across the entire power infrastructure ecosystem will need to adapt to this architectural change. • www. intelligentcio. com
INTELLIGENT CIO NORTH AMERICA
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