News: Microelectronics
16 October 2025
Infineon supporting NVIDIA’s 800VDC power architecture
Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany says that it is supporting the 800V direct current (VDC) power architecture announced by NVIDIA of Santa Clara, CA, USA at Computex 2025 for AI infrastructure.
The exponential growth of artificial intelligence is rapidly outstripping the capacity of the existing 54V data-center power infrastructure, Infineon notes. A shift to a centralized 800VDC architecture allows reduced power losses, higher efficiency and reliability. However, the new architecture requires new power conversion solutions and safety mechanisms to prevent potential hazards and costly server downtimes due to, for example, service and maintenance.
“There is no AI without power. That’s why we are working with NVIDIA on intelligent power systems to meet the power demands of future AI data centers while providing a serviceable architecture that reduces system downtimes to a minimum,” says Adam White, division president Power & Sensor Systems at Infineon. “By driving the transformation towards high-density, reliable and safe 800V-powered data centers, we are revolutionizing the way power is delivered to AI server racks. It’s our vision to maximize the value of every watt, ultimately paving the way for a more efficient and sustainable AI ecosystem.”
AI data-center operators are investing heavily in high-performance computing for artificial intelligence, with projects like Stargate requiring massive capital expenditure (CapEx) of billions of dollars, notes Infineon. To guarantee a strong return on invest, it is crucial to maximize the uptime of AI server racks, which mandates a modular and scalable scheme for serviceability. Infineon and NVIDIA are collaborating on safety and service aspects such as the hot-swap controller functionality, which enables future server boards to operate in 800VDC power architectures. Exchanging server boards on an 800VDC bus while the entire rack continues operating requires a controlled pre-charging and dis-charging of the board. Infineon is supporting this with a dedicated solution based on silicon carbide (SiC). Enabled by CoolSiC JFET technology, data-center operators can exchange server boards in an 800VDC architecture while other servers continue to operate in the same rack. This mitigates the risk of downtimes and enables safe maintenance of server racks.
The switch to an 800V direct current architecture is a major step forward to establishing powerful AI gigafactories. The power consumption of an AI server rack is forecasted to increase from about 120kW to 500kW, then to 1MW by the end of the decade. As announced in May, Infineon will collaborate with NVIDIA on developing advanced power conversion solutions for accelerated computing platforms powered by 800VDC. Infineon is leveraging its Intermediate Bus Converter (IBC) technology and high-frequency switching solutions based on gallium nitride (GaN) to accelerate the development of three- and two-stage conversion solutions from grid to core. Both approaches aim to provide the most suitable solution for data-center operators reaching efficiency levels as high as 98% per conversion stage.
As the cost of an AI server is as much as 30 times higher than a traditional server, reducing power losses and ensuring high service uptime are key levers to reducing total cost of ownership and minimizing the carbon footprint of the AI data center. Therefore, Infineon is providing full systems solutions including hot-swap controllers, reliable protection technology and highly efficient power conversion solutions based on all relevant semiconductor materials to enable efficient, safe and sustainable operation of megawatt-scale AI server racks.
Infineon Technologies’ fellow Gerald Deboy gave a presentation at the OCP Global Summit 2025 in San Jose, CA, USA on 15 October in the session ‘Power Conversion Solutions for future Server Boards operating directly from HV DC’. Also, powering AI data centers is being discussed at Infineon’s technology collaboration forum OktoberTech Silicon Valley 2025 on 16 October.
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