VRT

Stand in the aisle of a modern AI data center. The server racks — tall metal cabinets packed with GPU servers — are the visible part. But look at what is surrounding them, below them, and on the roof above them. That is where Vertiv lives.

Start at the rack. Each AI server rack now draws 40 to 100+ kilowatts of power — enough electricity to power 15-30 homes. That power arrives through a Vertiv power distribution unit (PDU) mounted inside or beside the rack, which takes the building's electrical feed and distributes it precisely to each server at the correct voltage. Below the rack, a Vertiv coolant distribution unit (CDU) pumps chilled liquid through tubes that run directly to the hottest components — the GPU heatsinks. The liquid absorbs the heat and carries it away to a heat exchanger on the roof or outside the building, where it is rejected into the atmosphere.

If the building's grid power fails — a lightning strike, a transformer fault, a brownout — a Vertiv UPS system (a room-sized battery bank, usually in the basement) instantly takes over, providing power for the 30-60 seconds it takes for the backup diesel generators to start. Without that seamless handoff, every running AI training job in the building crashes and has to restart from the last checkpoint — potentially losing days of compute time worth millions of dollars.

In a traditional data center, cooling was an afterthought — blow enough cold air through the racks and you were fine. In an AI data center, cooling IS the design constraint. The building is engineered around the cooling system, not the other way around. Vertiv's equipment is designed into the facility blueprint from day one.