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Despite its name, Schneider Electric does not generate any power. This is an energy management company, and it mixes electrification and digitalization to allow customers to know exactly where their energy is consumed and optimize their energy usage in real time.
It is the data center’s largest energy management provider, making up about a quarter of its business, working with chip makers and Wall Street Powerhouse Nvidia.
Schneider announced in June that it will work with Nvidia to meet growing demand for sustainable A-Ready infrastructure. This was a research and development partnership in power, cooling, control and high density rack systems to enable the entire Europe and ultimately the next generation of AI factories.
Schneider then released a new, highly technical and detailed data center blueprint last month, developed with Nvidia. The company says it will significantly accelerate its construction timeline and help operators adopt AI-ready infrastructure.
The first part is an integrated power management and liquid cooling control system. The second is Nvidia’s framework for the development of new Blackwell chips.
“We will ensure that in every generation they come out, the solutions we put together will strengthen their installations to minimize energy consumption,” said Jean Pascal Toricoire, chairman of Schneider Electric. “A chip that powers or has AI enabled is a chip that consumes a lot of energy and needs to be cooled directly on the chip by bringing liquid directly into the chip.”
This partnership could prove to be extremely advantageous, especially given Nvidia’s recent $100 billion investment in Openai. More data centers mean greater demand for energy management as well as energy management.
“We are entering a new era of accelerated computing, in a new era of integrated intelligence through power, cooling and operations, where data center architecture is redefine, says Scott Wallace, director of data center engineering at NVIDIA, in a release on the new Schneider Designs.
It’s like a positive feedback loop, and AI can help to increase energy efficiency, even if it sucks up more energy. This is not just in the data center, but in every environment that is built.
“To keep it very simple, AI can help you get at least four times more efficient than consumption of at least 4-9 times,” Tricoire said.
Power consumption was already digital, but it was difficult to optimize it on a large scale.
“Today, for the first time, we are a digital energy revolution, so that we can do what you are doing, what I am doing, what this data center is doing, what the grid can do, what this power plant can produce, what this solar roof can do, what it can do in real time, what it can do in the right time, it can get much better and the right kind of energy.
The proliferation of energy sources such as the solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclei creates a dispersive model of energy production. This is one of the biggest changes in the market.
“If your home isn’t consuming any more power, you charge your electric vehicle, so because you’re autonomous with solar batteries, that means you’ve released enough power to power a part of this data center near you,” Tricoire said. “We can all be actors in our businesses, in our homes, in our homes, in our daily lives, our professional lives, in this transition.
Tricoire points to other regions such as Europe, India and China, and is turning to electrification due to a lack of fossil fuels. For them, it is the only way to make them more competitive. He said it would lead to further innovation in the sector and encourage American businesses to follow the lawsuit despite political headwinds due to renewable energy.
“Companies are very practical. If the solution makes money, they want it, right? And if the footprint is better on top of that, they’ll go even faster,” says Tricoire. “There are so many innovations happening today and the cost curves for new technologies are decreasing so quickly, so businesses are adopting new ways of doing this.”
Tricoire has been with the company for nearly 40 years and says he has never seen the dramatic, rapid maturity and growth of energy technology he is currently seeing.
“I think we’re completely underestimating the revolution that will take place in the energy sector over the next 20 years,” Tricoire said, adding that the combination of electrification technology and digitalization is increasing to a whole new level through AI, creating many possibilities that we’ve never seen before.
“And the great news is that it shouldn’t be unfolding in 10 or 20 years of time. These are technologies that can or can be deployed today with great economic benefits,” Torikoir said.
