Bob Tita of The Wall Street Journal reports that the expansion of data centers is fueling demand for generators and battery backups: ‘You cannot have downtime.’ He writes:
The data-center building boom is underpinned by a basic requirement: Never, ever, lose power.
The race to power new artificial-intelligence models and keep internet and mobile services humming around the clock is creating a windfall for the makers of the generators and battery systems that are crucial to keeping power flowing through thunderstorms and grid failures.
Blips, sags, dips or anything else less than a smooth, continuous flow of electricity aren’t tolerated at Stream Data Centers’ two computer server sites in suburban Chicago. The converted warehouse buildings host thousands of servers, backed up by banks of batteries and diesel generators. […]
“The servers have become less and less tolerant to the slight sags in power or brownouts,” said Adam Compton, head of data-center strategy for Schneider Electric, the supplier of the uninterruptible power systems for Stream Data.
Read more here.