Liquid Cooling is the new ‘cool’.

Can you highlight what is different about data centre infrastructure in India now- is it resonating global trends and evolution?

India is rapidly aligning with and in many ways accelerating global trends in Data Centre infrastructure, driven by the explosive demand for sovereign AI, cloud expansion, and high-performance computing. We see the same extreme densification, gigawatt-scale ambitions, and need for utility-independent architectures that define the global AI era. In India, this manifests through intense focus on grid resilience, power availability, and rapid deployment to support national AI goals.

Modularity through prefabricated solutions accelerates deployment dramatically while ensuring repeatability and scalability.

AI workloads are pushing toward extreme high-density computing, requiring the same transformative approaches we see worldwide, only adapted to India’s unique energy and regulatory context.

How crucial and intentional is sustainability - specially with your push on adaptive liquid cooling?

Sustainability is core and intentional to everything we do at Vertiv. It’s embedded in our design philosophy as AI drives unprecedented energy and water demands. We are pushing adaptive liquid cooling because it represents a leap forward in efficiency, reliability, and environmental responsibility for high-density AI environments.

Our Vertiv Frontiers report highlights how AI enables smarter, more resilient liquid cooling systems functioning like a biological circulatory system with real-time AI-driven monitoring of coolant quality, pressure, and flow to predict failures and optimise performance. Innovations such as the Vertiv CoolChip CDU combine direct-to-chip liquid cooling with adaptable air systems, delivering superior PUE while minimising resource use. This approach directly supports sustainability goals by enabling higher efficiency at scale, reducing overall footprint, and enhancing uptime for mission-critical AI workloads. We see this as essential for responsible AI growth, both globally and in resource-conscious markets like India.

What about old and new challenges like outages, downtime, redundancies, security loopholes, AI-readiness etc.- Are Data Centres moving forward well on these core issues?

The industry is making strong progress, but AI’s intensity demands continuous advancement in resilience and readiness. At Vertiv, we focus on building inherent redundancy and intelligence into our systems, such as distributed redundant power in our modular solutions and predictive capabilities that shift from reactive to proactive maintenance.

Our portfolio addresses these challenges head-on: advanced monitoring, AI-enhanced controls for failure prediction, and integrated architectures that maintain continuity during disruptions. For AI-readiness, we prioritise designs that handle extreme densities while ensuring security through robust, cyber-resilient infrastructure.

How are AI-workloads and hardware evolution affecting Data Centre configurations and capacity planning?

AI workloads are driving a complete redesign of configurations, with rack densities surging from traditional levels to 100+ kW and beyond, necessitating holistic integration of power, cooling, and compute. Hardware advancements push us toward higher-voltage DC architectures, extreme densification, and hybrid cooling to support next-generation accelerators.

AI workloads are driving a complete redesign of configurations, with rack densities surging from traditional levels to 100+ kW and beyond.

At Vertiv, this influences our capacity planning tools and solutions, such as the AI Reference Design Selector and prefabricated modular systems that enable elastic, scalable deployments. We emphasise end-to-end integration so operators can plan for shorter lifecycles, power surges, and rapid upgrades, which helps in ensuring configurations remain future-proof as AI hardware evolves.

Would modularity, Data Centre-as-a-service, edge Data Centre options and nuclear energy options become more than minor trends ahead?

These are poised to become dominant strategies, not minor trends, as AI demands speed, flexibility, and energy autonomy. Modularity through prefabricated solutions accelerates deployment dramatically while ensuring repeatability and scalability.

Data Centre-as-a-service and colocation models provide the agility enterprises need without owning everything outright. Edge options are essential for low-latency AI applications. In India, these trends are especially relevant for building resilient, GW-scale infrastructure. At Vertiv, we are actively enabling this future with integrated, AI-optimised solutions that balance innovation, sustainability, and reliability. We are committed to partnering with the ecosystem to realise AI’s full potential responsibly.

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in