Schneider Electric Unveils Solutions for AI-Driven Energy and Sustainability Challenges

Schneider Electric Introduces Solutions for Energy and Sustainability Challenges Driven by Artificial Intelligence

•    Recent announcements support the company's mission to decarbonize digital infrastructure, enabling customers to deploy more sustainable, AI-compatible data center solutions everywhere and at appropriate scale.
•    A new GB200 NVL72 reference design developed jointly with NVIDIA offers a proven, validated, and highly energy-efficient architecture to support NVIDIA's new Blackwell chip.
•    The new Galaxy VXL UPS delivers the industry's most compact and highest-density power protection system for AI, data centers, and large-scale electrical loads.

Schneider Electric, a leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, has unveiled innovative products and services that address energy and sustainability challenges resulting from rising demand for artificial intelligence systems. The newly developed solutions aim to create high-density, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly data center infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.

The first part of the announcement focuses on a new data center reference design developed in collaboration with NVIDIA. This design supports liquid-cooled, high-density artificial intelligence clusters of up to 132 kW per cabinet. Optimized for NVIDIA's GB200 NVL72 and Blackwell chips, the design simplifies planning and implementation timelines through proven and validated architectures, providing solutions to the unique challenges posed by large-scale liquid cooling deployment.

Additionally, Schneider Electric introduced the new Galaxy VXL UPS, the industry's most compact and highest-density uninterruptible power supply (UPS) designed for artificial intelligence, data centers, and large-scale electrical workloads. The Galaxy VXL UPS delivers 52 percent space savings compared to industry averages while achieving power density of up to 1,042 kW/m². This scalable modular UPS with 1.25 MW capacity was designed to deliver more efficient power in smaller, high-density spaces.

Both innovations form part of Schneider Electric's end-to-end, AI-ready data center solutions. Focusing on three main areas—developing energy strategy for the artificial intelligence network, deploying advanced infrastructure, and providing sustainability consulting—these solutions aim to benefit data center owners and operators while realizing energy-efficient and high-density infrastructure to support artificial intelligence workloads in the most sustainable manner possible.

The energy and environmental impact of artificial intelligence is growing at a rapid pace, and it is critical that we bend the energy curve downward by finding new ways to decarbonize data centers and digital infrastructure," said Pankaj Sharma, Senior Vice President of Data Centers and Networks at Schneider Electric, continuing: "As Schneider Electric, we are committed to pushing boundaries, setting new standards, and shaping the future of artificial intelligence while protecting the environment. This requires a strategic approach spanning everything from the power grid to the chip, cooling systems, and beyond."

Partnership with NVIDIA

Schneider Electric's latest data center reference design was developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, supporting liquid-cooled artificial intelligence clusters while providing solutions to unique challenges associated with implementing liquid cooling in hyperscale co-location and enterprise data center environments.
Strengthening the companies' partnership, this reference design includes liquid-to-liquid cooler distribution units (CDU) and direct-to-chip liquid cooling options, and shares comprehensive mechanical and electrical plans to deliver more energy-efficient and sustainable operations for future artificial intelligence data centers.

Developed using Schneider Electric's software tools such as Ecodial and EcoStruxure™ IT Design CFD, this design can be customized to meet the specific requirements of artificial intelligence workloads, while helping users implement the most sustainable and energy-efficient infrastructure designs for high-density applications.

"Building the future of accelerated computing and artificial intelligence requires speed and a strong foundation," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, continuing: "Our collaboration with Schneider Electric enables our customers to architect technological advances on stable and resilient infrastructure. Together, we are creating artificial intelligence data centers built specifically for accelerated computing, centers that support the complex architectures needed to deliver digital intelligence to every company and industry."

End-to-End AI Data Center Solutions

The presentations at the virtual session held on 4 December reinforce Schneider Electric's commitment to creating comprehensive, sustainable, and end-to-end AI-ready data center solutions, helping customers decarbonize their digital infrastructure at global scale. These solutions concentrate on three main areas:

Energy Strategy for the AI Network: Schneider Electric supports companies in securing renewable energy and optimizing on-site energy generation from various sources such as wind, solar, and hydrogen. It also provides services such as site selection and geographic analysis based on customer facility plans, and enables on-site energy generation through AlphaStruxure. This ensures rapid market deployment, reliability, resilience, and sustainability of selected energy sources.

Advanced Infrastructure Solutions: Schneider Electric has developed a comprehensive portfolio of high-density and energy-efficient infrastructure systems for artificial intelligence applications requiring more than 100 kW per cabinet. This includes data center infrastructure components spanning from grid to chip and chip to cooler, AI-enabled remote monitoring and energy management software, and digital services for lifecycle optimization.

Schneider Electric's new Galaxy VXL UPS represents the latest example of the company's end-to-end advanced infrastructure portfolio. For the first time in history, this new UPS offers customers scalable 125 kW power modules in 3U space, with capacity to support 1.25 MW of critical load in a single frame, and can deliver up to 5 MW of power across just 4.8 m² by paralleling four units.

Additionally, to address rising temperatures from high-density workloads, Schneider Electric signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Motivair Corporation, strengthening its liquid cooling portfolio and expanding its expertise in direct-to-chip liquid cooling and high-capacity thermal solutions.

Efficiency and Sustainability: Schneider Electric's Sustainability Consulting services help customers exceed their carbon emission reduction targets through tailored sustainability strategies, emission assessments, and supplier engagement programs. These global consulting services provide customers with data-driven insights through EcoStruxure Resource Advisor and are supported by 2,400 experts across more than 100 countries.

Bending the Energy Curve for Artificial Intelligence

Schneider Electric advocates for a science-based approach to "bend" the energy consumption curve. Central to this approach is the use of "energy intelligence for sustainable artificial intelligence." Schneider Electric believes this can be achieved by integrating data center infrastructure with AI-powered applications.

By doing so, industries will not only reduce the energy footprint of artificial intelligence but will also be able to use AI monitoring capabilities and insights as a tool for broader carbon emission reduction efforts. Realizing this vision requires a unified commitment to implementing sustainable solutions and leveraging artificial intelligence's potential to increase efficiency across all sectors.

Sean Graham, Research Director at IDC Cloud to Edge Datacenter Trends, stated: "By 2027, data center electricity consumption is expected to represent 2.5 percent of global demand, with the remaining 97.5 percent distributed across sectors such as buildings, manufacturing, transportation, and energy," continuing:  

"As data centers work toward meeting their own net-zero targets, the true sustainability promise lies in using artificial intelligence to decarbonize all value chains across industries. As demonstrated by Schneider Electric and NVIDIA, long-term collaboration and innovation are critical to delivering efficiency and sustainability."