Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advancing technology are challenging data center capacity and power infrastructure. Traditional stick-built construction is riddled with delays and quality concerns, leading operators toward modularity in data centers instead.
Meet surging workload demands with concurrent construction and factory-controlled precision. By shifting work off of the critical construction path, your facility can prepare for the future without sacrificing quality, cost control or sustainability.
Data centers get a boost from a modular construction approach because it’s designed to happen concurrently with your other preparations and solve for increasing demand. Save time and stand up to new requirements.
Modularity in data centers is the gold standard because the alternative moves at a snail’s pace and doesn’t give you much control. Traditional stick-built projects are tethered to linear timelines that require site work to be finished before actual building begins.
Modular construction breaks this dependency by creating a system of parallel processing that compresses the overall project. This approach brings site preparation and infrastructure manufacturing together, including:
● Grading
● Pads
● Utilities
● Power skids
● E-houses
Reduce your data center build schedule by up to 50% over stick-built construction. Moving complex electrical and mechanical work enables faster time to revenue with assembly line efficiency that delivers integrated systems in weeks instead of months.
Modular data center designs are inherently density-ready because they’re built to support extreme thermal and power loads. Legacy 5-10kW rack designs simply can’t keep up and aren’t designed to support the up to 120 kW that modern AI clusters demand without invasive and costly retrofits.
Today’s high-density workloads require specialized low-voltage switchgear to handle higher amperages. To accommodate, custom power skids used in modular data centers integrate smart switchgear with data center infrastructure management capabilities, allowing real-time monitoring for extreme loads.
With high-density loads comes increased exertion. Fortunately, modularity in data centers accounts for this with builds that seamlessly integrate direct liquid cooling, immersion cooling and rear-door heat exchangers into system design to manage the thermal output of next-gen graphics processing units.
Create the data center your organization needs for its specific operations as modularity scales with you—without compromise. Modular construction helps you prepare for operational and industry changes via flexible deployment while following rigorous processes to ensure the quality of your investment.
Chunking is a pay-as-you-grow model for modularity in data centers that enables incremental expansion—especially as AI growth remains uncertain. Using this strategy, your facility can deploy standardized 1MW or 2MW capacity blocks—or chunks—exactly when needed, helping to:
● Optimize capital expenditures.
● Reduce overprovisioning.
● Eliminate stranded assets.
Factory-controlled environments eliminate unknowns, providing predictability across modular construction. No matter your jobsite, you can be assured you’ll achieve consistent, high-quality builds across data centers, uninhibited by:
● Weather delays
● Site contamination
● Trade stacking
Modularity in data centers includes rigorous factory acceptance testing by design. Before each system ships, it’s tested for quality control, with modules simulating loads and testing interconnections off-site. This extra step provides reassurance across the system’s lifetime to reduce on-site commissioning issues and ensure long-term performance.
Taking a modular approach provides more than speed to completion and standardization to also facilitate data center construction with minimal footprint. In particular, the approach maximizes efficiency while reducing waste.
With integrated cooling and power available from the start, modular designs achieve superior tolerances over stick-built construction. By leaning on factory assembly from the start, modularity in data centers makes it easy to integrate high-efficiency components during construction.
These modular designs improve airflow containment and thermal management, unlocking lower power usage effectiveness (PUE) values than legacy facilities. Maximize operational performance per watt by integrating advanced uninterruptible power supply systems and closed-loop cooling.
The controlled manufacturing that’s a hallmark of modularity in data centers reduces construction waste by significantly optimizing material use over stick-built construction. PCX exemplifies this by practicing precise inventory management and reducing unnecessary factory processes to minimize material scrap and landfill waste.
But the icing on the proverbial cake is that modular units aren’t locked into one place or purpose. Instead, they can be easily relocated, extending the infrastructure’s lifecycle and reducing the carbon impact of demolition and new construction.
As technology advances, achieving speed, power and efficiency is crucial. Modularity in data centers provides a predictable, scalable path forward, so you can overcome the roadblocks that often drag traditional construction down and optimize for demand and longevity.
Don’t let legacy methods hold you back. Design your next-generation modular power infrastructure with PCX and grow by deploying custom, factory-built solutions. For a deeper dive into how this approach can transform your data center build, download our eBook, Embracing Modularity: Powering the Future of Data Center Construction.