ABB showcases AI data center solutions at DCW Madrid

ABB will participate in the Data Centre World exhibition, taking place on November 4 and 5 at IFEMA MADRID. At its booth, the company will present a complete ecosystem of electrification, digitalization, and automation technologies designed to help hyperscale and critical infrastructure operators manage the growing energy demands driven by artificial intelligence. As a focal point, Daniel Rodrigo, data center portfolio leader, will detail how transitioning to 800 V DC architectures using the new "Infinitus" range can modernize existing facilities and facilitate the deployment of high-density racks for AI workloads.

Electrical Distribution and Optimized Cooling
ABB's technical exhibition will include innovations aimed at resilience and sustainability. Highlights will include the HiPerGuard medium-voltage UPS system, scalable up to 25 MW with an efficiency exceeding 98%, and the UniSec Air medium-voltage switchgear, which utilizes dry air insulation to eliminate SF₆ gas. For low-voltage protection and management, the SACE Emax 3 circuit breaker, integrating advanced cybersecurity, will be presented. Furthermore, ABB will conduct interactive demonstrations of regenerative ACS880 drives coupled with IE5 synchronous reluctance motors (SynRM) to minimize harmonics, and showcase OctaiPipe, an AI-based solution to continuously optimize cooling systems and improve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).

Additional Context: 800 V DC Architectures and Cooling for AI
This section details electrical and thermal engineering principles not included in the original press release.

In traditional data centers, power is distributed in alternating current (AC) and then converted several times into direct current (DC) before reaching the processors, with each conversion step causing thermal losses. With the advent of AI clusters (massively utilizing highly energy-intensive GPUs), power density per rack has surged from around 10 kW to over 50 kW, or even 100 kW. To support these extreme loads without oversizing copper cables (which would increase cost and weight), architectures like ABB's "Infinitus" shift toward direct high-voltage direct current (800 V DC) distribution. This reduces Joule heating losses and eliminates multiple stages of AC/DC conversion inverters in the server room. Concurrently, to efficiently cool these ultra-dense racks, infrastructure AI software (AIOps) such as OctaiPipe analyzes server telemetry in real time to dynamically adjust chilled water pump flow rates (in liquid cooling or direct-to-chip systems), maintaining a PUE close to 1.1 while avoiding processor thermal throttling.

Edited by industrial journalist Lekshman Ramdas, with AI assistance.

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