Summary
- Infinitus combines medium-voltage equipment, solid-state transformation, DC distribution, protection, power quality, and cooling optimisation.
- ABB's solid-state transformer is designed to convert medium-voltage AC directly to 800V DC with fewer conversion stages.
- The launch reflects a broader move towards higher-voltage DC architectures for dense AI racks.
ABB has launched an integrated direct-current power portfolio for AI data centres, extending 800V DC architecture from medium-voltage supply through distribution and protection towards the server rack.
The Infinitus range combines grid-facing equipment, solid-state transformation, DC power-quality systems, distribution, protection, and cooling optimisation. ABB’s central new component is a solid-state transformer designed to convert medium-voltage AC to 800V DC with fewer conversion stages than conventional architectures.
The company argues that reducing those conversion stages can improve electrical efficiency and shrink the footprint occupied by power infrastructure, leaving a greater proportion of the facility available for computing equipment.
That proposition is becoming more important as AI racks move towards power densities that make older electrical architectures physically cumbersome. Supplying a hall containing racks at well above conventional enterprise densities can require large numbers of conversion devices, busways, cables, and switchboards, all producing losses and consuming space.
Why 800V is moving upstream
Data centres have always contained both AC and DC systems. Utility supplies arrive as AC, while servers ultimately operate internally on DC. The engineering question is how often power is converted between those forms and at what voltage it is distributed.
Higher-voltage DC can carry the same power with lower current than a lower-voltage system. That can reduce conductor sizes and resistive losses, although the design then needs suitable protection, switching, connectors, safety systems, and equipment able to operate at the higher voltage.
ABB’s proposal is therefore a system architecture rather than a single power supply. Its portfolio includes medium-voltage switchgear and UPS equipment at the grid-facing side as well as conversion, distribution, and protection further downstream.
Solid-state transformers are one of the more consequential pieces. Replacing some conventional magnetic transformation and conversion stages with power electronics can offer tighter control and a smaller physical footprint, but it also changes the failure modes, service requirements, and semiconductor dependence of the electrical chain.
Operators evaluating such systems will therefore look beyond nominal efficiency. Availability, maintainability, fault isolation, spare-parts strategy, arc and shock protection, compatibility with rack equipment, and the behaviour of the system during disturbances all matter in facilities designed around continuous operation.
DC does not remove the grid problem
A more efficient internal electrical architecture can reduce losses between the utility connection and the processors. It cannot create grid capacity where none exists.
That distinction is increasingly important as manufacturers promote equipment designed to extract more computing capacity from each megawatt delivered to a site. If an operator saves electrical losses inside the facility, more of the incoming power can reach IT equipment — valuable where connections are fixed or difficult to expand.
But the underlying site still needs enough network capacity, resilience, and backup to support the load. ABB’s portfolio therefore includes equipment aimed at voltage stability, frequency response, storage integration, and rapidly changing AI loads rather than treating 800V DC as an isolated rack-level technology.
The company expects complete DC-native data centre architectures using the portfolio to begin appearing over the next two to three years. In practice, adoption is likely to include hybrid facilities where AC remains in parts of the plant while DC is extended further towards dense compute.
The significance of Infinitus will therefore be measured less by whether DC enters data centres — it already has — than by how far operators are prepared to move the conversion boundary upstream as rack power continues to rise.
