Steven Carlini, Vice President of Innovation and Data Center at Schneider Electric, focused on one of the industry’s biggest growth drivers: AI.
While Carlini noted that AI was driving “unprecedented change” in the world, he highlighted the lack of understanding when it comes to the added strain LLMs are placing on data centers and power grids.
“When people talk about [AI], they tend to just [look at] the end results and talk about how it is going to transform everything – but it's not magic,” he said. “It’s actually dependent on data centers and network capacity.”
He added: “The data centers that we're building now are not large enough. They don't have the processing power, and there's not enough of them.”
As power constraints continue to impact markets around the world, Carlini said technology systems, including ‘peaker plants,’ grid storage, and SMRs may become increasingly important.