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Tag: Schneider Electric

  • Schneider’s ‘3x Faster’ Switchgear Bets Data Center Power Can Come Off the Shelf

    Schneider’s ‘3x Faster’ Switchgear Bets Data Center Power Can Come Off the Shelf

    TL;DR · 30-second read

    The Short Version

    Equinix, one of the world’s largest renters of data center space (the buildings full of computers that run websites and apps), is testing new electrical equipment from Schneider Electric inside a working facility.

    The equipment is the heavy-duty switching gear that takes power from the grid and routes it safely into a building. Today it is usually custom-built for each site, which is slow. Schneider says its version uses one standard design controlled by software, and can be ordered and built up to three times faster.

    The catch is timing. Most buyers will not be able to get it until 2028.

    Equinix is piloting Schneider Electric’s newly launched software-defined medium-voltage (MV) switchgear inside a live colocation data center, Data Centre Magazine reported on September 29, 2026. Schneider unveiled the system at its YOTTA 2026 event in Las Vegas, running September 28-30, and describes it as the world’s first fully software-defined MV switchgear.

    Schneider says the design allows up to three times faster ordering and manufacturing, up to two times faster commissioning and onsite acceptance testing, and upgrades with zero operational downtime. Pilot programs will continue through 2027, with broader availability expected from 2028.

    Executive Summary

    Medium-voltage switchgear is the equipment that receives power from the utility side and distributes and protects it before it is stepped down for use inside a building. It is typically engineered to order, meaning each lineup is designed for a specific site. Schneider Electric’s new product replaces that bespoke approach with standardized hardware whose functions are set and updated in software, including over-the-air updates that add features without physical modification.

    Equinix’s role is to prove the concept where it counts: in an operating colocation facility, where multiple customers share infrastructure and reliability expectations leave little room for experimentation. Greg Metcalf, Equinix’s Senior Director of Global Data Center Design and Innovation, framed the value around standardization “for multiple use cases.”

    The significance is less the software itself than what it enables. If power distribution gear can be ordered as a standard product rather than designed per site, one of the slower steps in bringing data center capacity online could shorten. That benefit, however, is on a 2028 horizon for most buyers.

    The Speedup Comes From Standardization

    Schneider’s own explanation of the problem points to the mechanism. Traditional MV systems are engineered to order, which the company says leads to long lead times, complex procurement and limited scalability. The first change it lists is that standardized hardware platforms replace bespoke designs. Software is the tool that makes this possible: if protection settings, logic and features live in configurable software, one physical platform can serve configurations that previously needed distinct engineering. The claimed result is up to three times faster ordering and manufacturing.

    That is why the headline claim is best read as a bet on off-the-shelf power equipment. An engineered-to-order product cannot be meaningfully ordered until a site’s electrical design is settled. A standardized one can, in principle, be ordered earlier, built in larger runs and configured closer to installation. For operators, that turns switchgear selection from a line item into a schedule decision: the lead time on this equipment helps determine when a data hall can be energized and sold.

    Both executives emphasized this point. Metcalf cited “increased standardisation for multiple use cases,” while Melton Chang, Executive Vice President of Schneider’s Power Systems Division, said customers can “standardise across regions.” For a multi-market operator such as Equinix, a single qualified design deployable in many countries is a procurement advantage that compounds with every new build.

    Why a Live Colocation Site Matters

    Colocation facilities rent space, power and cooling to many tenants under one roof, so shared electrical infrastructure is difficult to take offline. That context gives Schneider’s “zero operational downtime” upgrade claim practical weight. Changes to conventional switchgear often require planned outages or physical work; changes delivered through software, if they work as described, avoid negotiating maintenance windows across many customers.

    Chang put the broader pressure plainly: “Data centres are being asked to build faster than traditional power infrastructure can move.” The current construction wave, much of it tied to AI workloads, has made power equipment timing a visible constraint. A pilot in a working facility is the credible way to show that a new approach to critical power does not trade reliability for speed.

    Software in the Power Path Raises New Questions

    Moving function into software also moves risk. Switchgear performs protection: it detects faults and interrupts current to keep equipment and people safe. Over-the-air updates to devices in that role require rigorous change control, validation and cybersecurity, and the announcement does not describe how Schneider addresses them. The lifecycle layer adds further connectivity, with embedded analytics and AI-powered predictive maintenance through Schneider’s EcoCare Services.

    The performance claims also need context. “Up to” three times faster ordering and “up to” two times faster commissioning are ceilings, not averages, and no baseline lead time accompanies them. Buyers will want to know how those figures translate into weeks saved on an actual project.

    2028 Is the Date That Counts

    Pilots run through 2027 and broader availability is expected from 2028, so near-term data center builds will largely rely on conventional gear. Schneider’s plan to extend the architecture across its MV portfolio, including PremSet and the AirSeT range (GM, RM and SM AirSeT), signals a portfolio-wide shift rather than a single product. For operators planning capacity for the later part of the decade, the Equinix pilot is an early reference point worth watching; for projects breaking ground now, it is not yet an option.

    Background

    Equinix is a global colocation operator, renting data center space, power and cooling to many customers in shared facilities and connecting them to networks and cloud providers. Because it builds in many markets, repeatable designs that can be deployed across regions are central to how it expands capacity.

    Schneider Electric makes power distribution and energy management equipment, including medium-voltage switchgear lines such as PremSet and AirSeT. Its Software Defined Energy strategy aims to separate system intelligence from hardware so that power infrastructure can be updated through software rather than rebuilt. The software-defined MV switchgear, launched at YOTTA 2026 in Las Vegas, is the first product under that approach to be tested in a live data center.

    Sources

    Source: Inside Equinix’s Pilot of Schneider Electric’s MV Switchgear (Data Centre Magazine), on Equinix’s live colocation pilot of Schneider Electric’s software-defined medium-voltage switchgear.

  • SoftBank’s 3.1GW France Phase Shows Gigawatt AI Is a Factory Problem

    SoftBank’s 3.1GW France Phase Shows Gigawatt AI Is a Factory Problem

    TL;DR · 30-second read

    The Short Version

    SoftBank, the Japanese investor behind many of the world’s biggest artificial intelligence bets, plans to spend up to 75 billion euros on computer warehouses for artificial intelligence in northern France.

    At full size they would use about as much electricity as five large nuclear reactors produce. The first stage is due by 2031.

    The surprise: SoftBank and a French electrical company will also build factories at the port of Dunkirk to make the buildings’ metal housings and power equipment. At this scale, producing the equipment fast enough is part of the challenge, not just finding the electricity.

    SoftBank plans to develop and operate up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of AI data center capacity in France, with an investment of up to €75 billion ($87.5bn), Data Center Dynamics reported on May 30, 2026. The first phase, costing an initial €45 billion ($52.5bn), aims to deliver 3.1GW in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031, with initial campuses planned at Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel and Bouchain.

    State-owned utility EDF is partnering on the project and providing the site of a former power plant at Bouchain. Separately, SoftBank will work with Schneider Electric on an industrial production cluster at the Port of Dunkirk: a SoftBank-operated plant making data center enclosures and a Schneider site integrating data center power modules. Financial terms of the Schneider partnership were not disclosed.

    Executive Summary

    SoftBank’s France plan is one of the largest AI data center commitments announced in Europe, and French economy minister Roland Lescure described it as a first for the group in Europe. The headline figures are ceilings — up to 5GW and up to €75 billion — but the first phase carries firmer markers: 3.1GW, €45 billion, three named sites and a 2031 target date.

    The detail that matters most for the industry is not the investment total but the factory cluster at Dunkirk. SoftBank is not only buying data center capacity; it is setting up its own enclosure manufacturing and pairing it with Schneider Electric’s power-module integration next door. That signals the project’s pace is expected to depend on how fast physical equipment can be produced and installed, alongside how fast France’s grid can connect the load.

    Two open questions will decide whether the plan lands on schedule: whether gigawatt-scale grid connections in Hauts-de-France can be delivered by 2031, and how SoftBank funds this alongside its other large commitments.

    The Dunkirk Factory Is the Tell

    A data center at this scale is less a single building than an assembly of standardized parts: enclosures (the prefabricated shells that house equipment), switchgear, transformers, uninterruptible power supplies and the power modules that package them. Delivering 3.1GW across three campuses in roughly five years means installing that equipment at a volume few projects have attempted. SoftBank’s answer is to build the supply chain beside the project: its own plant to manufacture enclosures and a Schneider Electric facility to integrate power modules, both at the Port of Dunkirk, where one of the first campuses (Loon-Plage) is also planned.

    Schneider CEO Olivier Blum made the logic explicit, calling prefabricated power modules “a key lever to combine speed, scalability and energy optimization.” Prefabrication moves electrical assembly and testing from a muddy construction site into a factory, where it can be done in parallel with civil works and repeated at volume. Co-locating that production with a campus, at a port, shortens the path from assembly line to installation and could plausibly serve the inland sites at Bosquel and Bouchain as well.

    This is why the headline fits: at gigawatt scale, the bottleneck is not only megawatts from the grid but units off a production line. For equipment makers, contractors and other European developers, the implication is that the largest buyers may increasingly lock in dedicated manufacturing capacity rather than compete for it on the open market. SoftBank has not said what share of the project’s equipment the cluster will supply, so the scale of that effect remains to be seen.

    France’s Grid Pitch Meets a Gigawatt Test

    The French government is selling power as the country’s advantage. Lescure cited “fast access to the most reliable electrical grid in Europe” and a government that works with local authorities to fast-track strategic projects. France’s largely nuclear generation fleet gives it a stable, low-carbon supply base that many European markets lack, and EDF’s direct involvement puts the national utility inside the project rather than across the negotiating table.

    Generation and grid connection are different problems, though. A 3.1GW first phase is a very large new load concentrated in one region, and each campus needs high-voltage transmission capacity delivered on time. The choice of Bouchain, a former power plant site provided by EDF, is significant here: retired generation sites often come with existing high-voltage infrastructure and industrial zoning, which can shorten connection work. Neither SoftBank nor EDF has said how much grid capacity is available at any of the three sites or when it will be energized.

    The 2031 date is therefore the real test of the minister’s claim. If France can connect gigawatt-scale AI campuses on that timeline, it strengthens its case as Europe’s preferred AI infrastructure location. If connections slip, the factory cluster could end up producing equipment faster than the grid can power it.

    The Financing Question Behind the Headline Number

    “Up to €75 billion” describes a ceiling, not committed capital. The firmer figure is the €45 billion first phase, which leaves an implied 1.9GW and €30 billion for later phases with no disclosed timing or locations.

    The funding context is demanding. According to Data Center Dynamics, SoftBank carries more than $130 billion in debt and took a $40 billion bridge loan in March to fund its latest OpenAI investment. TD Cowen analysts point to further planned outlays, including $16 billion for Stargate and $9 billion for the acquisitions of ABB Robotics and DigitalBridge. SoftBank has also pitched a 10GW data center at a former nuclear enrichment site in Ohio and expects to take a robotics data center construction business, Roze AI, public at a target valuation of $100 billion.

    None of this means the France plan cannot be funded; large infrastructure is routinely financed at the project level with outside equity and debt. But SoftBank has not said how this project will be capitalized, and the scale of its concurrent commitments makes the funding structure a fair question for anyone planning around the 2031 date.

    What It Means for Europe’s AI Map

    France has spent the past year positioning itself as Europe’s AI infrastructure hub, and a commitment of this size from one of the sector’s most active investors strengthens that case. It also gives Hauts-de-France, an industrial region with port access and legacy energy sites, a central role in that strategy.

    For competing European locations, the lesson is that power availability alone is no longer the whole pitch. SoftBank’s package pairs a state utility partner, a reused power plant site and a local manufacturing base. Regions trying to win similar projects may be judged on whether they can offer all three.

    Background

    SoftBank Group, founded by Masayoshi Son, is one of the most active investors in AI infrastructure. It is a major backer of OpenAI and its Stargate data center program, has pitched a 10GW data center at a former nuclear enrichment site in Ohio, and plans to take a robotics data center construction business, Roze AI, public. Schneider Electric is a French multinational supplying power and cooling equipment to data centers, and EDF is France’s state-owned electricity company, which operates the country’s nuclear fleet.

    France has spent recent years courting AI data center investment under President Emmanuel Macron, pitching its low-carbon, nuclear-heavy electricity supply and faster permitting for strategic projects. The industrial Hauts-de-France region in the north, home to the Port of Dunkirk and several legacy energy sites, has become a focal point of that effort.

    Sources

    Source: SoftBank plans up to 5GW data center buildout in France, investment of up to €75bn — Data Center Dynamics on SoftBank’s French AI data center plan and its Dunkirk production cluster with Schneider Electric.

  • Schneider Electric: India Data Center Growth Now Outpaces Its Core Business

    Schneider Electric: India Data Center Growth Now Outpaces Its Core Business

    Reuters reported on May 24, 2026 that Schneider Electric — the French energy-management and industrial-automation group — says its data center business in India is now growing faster than its core business, propelled by the country’s AI-driven data center buildout. The comment positions India as one of the standout markets in a global surge of demand for the electrical equipment that powers AI computing.

    Executive Summary

    The substance of the report is a growth signal, not a contract or a capacity announcement: Schneider Electric, one of the world’s largest suppliers of the switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS — the battery-backed systems that keep servers running through grid disturbances), and power-distribution equipment that data centers depend on, says demand from India’s data center sector is expanding faster than the rest of its business there.

    That matters for two reasons. First, it is a read on where the AI infrastructure wave is spreading: hyperscale-style demand is no longer confined to the United States and a handful of established hubs. Second, it comes from the supply side. Data center operators announce ambitions; equipment vendors see purchase orders. When a major electrical supplier says one segment is outgrowing everything else it does in a market, that is a comparatively hard signal that capital is actually being spent.

    The caveat is proportionality: “outpacing core growth” describes a rate, not a size, and the report as available does not quantify either. A fast-growing segment can still be a small one.

    The AI Boom Is Really an Electrical Equipment Boom

    Every AI data center is, underneath the servers, an electrical engineering project. Racks of AI accelerators draw several times the power of conventional servers, and that power has to be received from the grid, transformed, distributed, conditioned, and backed up — all with equipment from a fairly short list of global vendors, of which Schneider Electric is one of the largest alongside the likes of ABB, Siemens, Eaton, and Vertiv. This is why the AI cycle has been felt so strongly by electrical suppliers: compute demand converts almost directly into orders for switchgear, transformers, UPS systems, busway, and cooling infrastructure.

    Schneider’s India comment extends a pattern the industry has watched for two years in the US and Europe: the constraint on AI capacity is increasingly power delivery, not chips alone. When equipment vendors describe data centers as their fastest-growing segment in a new geography, it signals that the buildout — and potentially the associated equipment lead-time pressure — is going global.

    Why India Is the Market to Watch

    India combines several ingredients that data center investors look for: a very large and growing base of internet users, data-localization rules that encourage storing Indian data in-country, comparatively low construction costs, and government interest in domestic AI capability. Global cloud providers and regional operators have all announced Indian expansion in recent years, concentrated around hubs such as Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

    For an equipment vendor, India offers something else: Schneider Electric has a long-established manufacturing and commercial presence there, so local data center demand can be served substantially from local operations. If AI-driven orders are now growing faster than the company’s traditional Indian business — which spans buildings, industry, and grid infrastructure — it suggests the data center segment is becoming a structural growth pillar rather than a side market.

    Supply-Side Signals Deserve Attention — and Context

    It is worth being precise about what this report does and does not establish. A vendor saying a segment is “outpacing core growth” is a directional claim about relative growth rates. As reported, it does not disclose the segment’s revenue, its share of Schneider’s India business, order backlog, or a forecast horizon. Growth from a small base can outpace a large core for years without changing the overall business mix, so the claim is credible but not yet quantified in the material available.

    It is also a statement any vendor has an interest in making during an AI investment cycle: data center exposure is currently rewarded by investors. That does not make the claim wrong — Schneider’s global results through this cycle have consistently shown genuine data center strength — but buyers and investors should look for the numbers behind the narrative when the company next reports segment detail. For data center operators, the practical takeaway is less about Schneider specifically and more about the market it describes: if India’s buildout is accelerating, competition for equipment, grid connections, and skilled electrical contractors in that market will accelerate with it.

    Background

    Schneider Electric traces its roots to 1836 in France and has evolved from heavy industry into a global leader in energy management and automation. Its data center relevance deepened with the 2007 acquisition of APC, a leading UPS maker, and the company now supplies integrated power, cooling, and management systems to hyperscale and colocation operators worldwide. Throughout the current AI investment cycle, data centers have been among the strongest demand drivers across the electrical equipment industry.

    India’s data center market has expanded rapidly since the country’s 2020s push on data localization and digital infrastructure, attracting investment from global cloud providers and domestic operators alike. The AI wave has added a second demand layer on top of that cloud-driven growth, with power availability widely viewed as the buildout’s key constraint.

    Source: Schneider Electric sees India data center business outpacing core growth on AI boom — Reuters, reporting the company’s comments on AI-driven data center demand in India, May 24, 2026.