A scorching potato: Knowledge facilities and server farms devoted to coaching and serving AI algorithms eat huge quantities of energy, and Huge Tech firms are scrambling to reduce outages and rationing occurrences. Infineon is proposing its personal answer to the AI energy downside with new PSUs designed to adapt to each present and future servers.

German semiconductor producer Infineon Applied sciences just lately introduced a brand new technology of energy provide items, promising unprecedented energy supply capabilities for knowledge facilities targeted on cloud servers and AI algorithms. Infineon’s new server PSUs can ship as much as 12 kW, integrating three totally different semiconductor supplies right into a single module.

In accordance with Infineon, these new PSUs are the world’s first items able to delivering as much as 12 kW of energy. Nonetheless, the primary fashions can have an influence score of 8 kW and shall be accessible within the first quarter of 2025. There isn’t any established launch date for the 12 kW mannequin in response to the corporate’s PSU roadmap.

Infineon is integrating silicon (Si), silicon carbide (SiC), and gallium nitride (GaN) into the identical module, which is able to considerably improve energy efficiency, effectivity, and reliability. The 12 kW PSUs will obtain a 97.5 p.c effectivity stage, whereas the 8 kW PSUs can assist “AI racks” with an output of 300 kW and extra.

Gallium nitride is a fabric that has helped client chargers shrink lately, whereas silicon carbide can present larger effectivity at larger voltage ranges. SiC is used for DC-to-DC inverters in electrical automobiles, however it might probably additionally work in PSUs designed to ship extra electrical vitality to GPUs designed for AI algorithm acceleration.

Because of the proliferation of chatbots and AI providers, knowledge facilities are experiencing speedy development of their vitality necessities. Infineon acknowledged that the brand new PSUs will assist these large server farms scale back energy consumption because of their elevated effectivity, whereas additionally chopping down greenhouse emissions and decreasing working prices.

In accordance with latest predictions, knowledge facilities might account for seven p.c of world electrical energy consumption by 2030. Fashionable, high-performing server GPUs require as much as 1 kW per single chip, and they’ll possible attain 2 kW “and past” by the top of the last decade. Main tech and AI firms are already feeling the affect of this ever-growing demand for energy, with Amazon being pressured to ration sources to keep away from grid outages in its Dublin knowledge facilities.