Announced today, the portfolio is a first look at Schneider Electric’s complete liquid cooling technology portfolio following its acquisition of Motivair earlier in the year.
Designed for hyperscale, colocation and high-density data centre environments, the portfolio has been designed to enable future-leading AI Factories. Combining Schneider Electric and Motivair’s expertise seeks to provide one of the most comprehensive data centre and liquid cooling portfolios currently available in the market.
Ahead of the announcement, Capacity spoke with Thierry Chamayou, vice-president of cloud and service providers in EMEA at Schneider Electric, to learn more about Schneider Electric’s plans to scale across Europe with its liquid cooling capabilities.
Charting data centre growth across EMEA
The European data centre market is booming, with Schneider Electric positioned as one of the key leaders driving significant transformation. While commercial cloud is still a large part of the market, Chamayou explained how new players and technologies have brought significant disruption.
“Disruption equals change and change equals opportunity,” he said. “Historically, commercial cloud has been obsessed with speed.
“With AI workloads, that market which was already obsessed by speed is now obsessed by doing it even faster. This challenges us not only to be a technology partner but also to integrate logistics and provide advanced manufacturing capabilities.”
He added: “It’s crucial to respond to the market not just with innovation and R&D for new technology, but also with answers to volume and speed demands.”
For the first time, this shift has extended beyond traditional FLAP-D data centre markets (France, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin), introducing newer markets like those in the Nordics.
Meanwhile, newer companies are entering the industry with innovative business models and, when it comes to AI, coming in with high-density racks that require liquid cooling technology.
“Campuses being built are bigger and demand more energy, so access to power is a key element of any investment,” Chamayou said.
“The Nordics have been attracting investors because of faster grid connection – averaging three years versus five to six years or more in the rest of Europe.
“They also have renewable energy, grid stability, universities producing top talent, natural resources and a climate that helps with cooling. They have stranded energy where you can simply connect and get power immediately,” he added.
Optimised liquid cooling with Motivair
With such shifts taking place, the technology giant recognises that commercial cloud and hyperconnectivity markets have drastically changed.
As a result, Chamayou said the company is eager to use its electricity experience by building substations, connecting to the grid and distributing electricity where it’s needed.
“We connect power, transmit power, and distribute power to where it’s needed in the data centre,” he said.
“We have all the solutions embedded with efficient products for power management. Whether it’s liquid cooling or air cooling, we cover all the solutions.”
Since acquiring Motivair, Schneider Electric has committed to boosting its liquid cooling capabilities. The new solutions include megawatt-class Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs), ChilledDoor rear door heat exchangers and Dynamic Cold Plates – all designed to safeguard peak performance and enhance energy efficiency and uptime.
Confronting challenges posed by high-density workloads, Chamayou said, is about developing a cooling solution rather than just a product.
“We look at liquid cooling as part of a total environmental cooling solution. The momentum in liquid cooling is driven by high-density racks from AI workloads,” he explained. “The acquisition gave us the opportunity to deliver the right solution to market faster than we could have by continuing development alone.
“Motivair has historically manufactured liquid cooling devices in the US, but their R&D and cooling centre of excellence remains in Italy, so we can also provide liquid cooling made in Europe.”
Pioneering the future of data centres
As AI continues to disrupt the data centre industry, there has been an overwhelming need to deliver volume faster.
In recent years, Schneider Electric has confronted this by investing in production capacity for prefabricated data centres, more than doubled its industrial capacity in cooling – all before the Motivair acquisition.
“We made these decisions during Covid-19 when people were questioning where the market was heading.
We said the market would grow, and to bring value, we needed regional footprints, to own the volume game, and to deliver standard designs quickly,” Chamayou explained.
“With a standardised design, you can pre-empt what the design will need over the years based on the megawatt pipeline they share with us. You start giving yourself the ability to work with partners on commoditising their needs.”
With its latest innovations, the company is committed to building a more robust supply chain that can serve more demand on a global scale.
“We’re working on what innovation changes we should bring to market to keep leading the pack rather than being part of the pack,” Chamayou explained.
“AI is an investment that brings disruption. The data centre market has done a good job at being efficient, which is something to be proud of, but it brings tremendous opportunities.
“At Schneider Electric, we’re happy to provide the market with greater efficiency to reduce energy in data centre usage and applications. Disruption brings change, and change brings opportunity. To keep being disruptive, you have to look to the future.”
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