Schneider Electric Warns That Existing Datacenters Aren't Buff Enough For AI
The Register, Tuesday, September 19,2023
You're going to need liquid-cooled servers, 415V PDUs, two-ton racks, and plenty of software management
The infrastructure behind popular AI workloads is so demanding that Schneider Electric has suggested it may be time to reevaluate the way we build datacenters.
In a recent white paper [PDF], the French multinational broke down several of the factors that make accommodating AI workloads so challenging and offered its guidance for how future datacenters could be optimized for them. The bad news is some of the recommendations may not make sense for existing facilities.
The problem boils down to the fact that AI workloads often require low-latency, high-bandwidth networking to operate efficiently, which forces densification of racks, and ultimately puts pressure on existing datacenters' power delivery and thermal management systems.