Nautilus, Overwatch Aiming for AI-Ready Data Centers Powered Carbon-Free
Nautilus Data Technologies and Overwatch Capital have announced a new partnership to deliver high-density artificial intelligence-ready data centers that are primarily powered by clean energy microgrids.
Nautilus Data Technologies, a data center liquid cooling and infrastructure company, will bring its advanced cooling technologies to the partnership while Overwatch Capital provides expertise in data center development and clean energy microgrid integration.
“By implementing the opportunity to combine our modular expertise with Nautilus’ groundbreaking cooling innovations, we are delivering the next generation of high-performance, rapidly deployable data center solutions,” Cole Walker, managing partner at Overwatch Capital, said in a statement.
Separately, Overwatch Capital announced its acquisition of a 150,000 square-foot data center in Plano, Texas, yesterday. The facility, dubbed Resilience DFW, will be powered by a clean energy microgrid and will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one of the fastest growing data center markets in the U.S.
The 30-MW data center can expand to 50 MW by leveraging both grid energy and the clean energy microgrid. The company said in a statement that Resilience DFW will be the flagship location for its Resilience Series data centers.
Powering AI with clean energy
The companies said they believe their combined technologies will support the highest-performing graphics processing units (GPUs) available today. GPUs are a critical piece of the hardware that powers AI.
Integrating clean energy microgrids will help address the sector’s growing power demands as well as its need to curb carbon emissions.
“This partnership underscores the shared commitment of Overwatch Capital and Nautilus to deliver innovative, sustainable infrastructure for the AI era,” said Rob Pfleging, CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies.
Microgrids and power-hungry AI
Demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-ready data centers is skyrocketing. These purpose-built facilities support the high-power, high-density computing demands unique to AI and machine learning workloads.
Just a few years ago, 30-MW data centers were normal. Today, a single data center typically requires 200 MW––one-fifth the capacity of a typical nuclear power plant––and that number is climbing. Nvidia’s latest rack-scale system may require up to 120 kW of electricity each. The power requirements of an entire data center filled with these systems is staggering.
Data center power will be a key topic at Microgrid Knowledge’s annual conference, to be held April 15-17 in Dallas.
“Powering Data Centers: Collaborative Microgrid Solutions for a Growing Market” will focus on the role microgrids can play in the growing data center market.
