Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, has announced a new partnership with Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), a leading research institute and innovation partner. Vertiv is entering the partnership program for data centre systems technologies at the platinum level, joining founding partners such as Facebook, Ericsson, Vattenfall, ABB, LTU and the Norrbotten region. The strategic cooperation between the two organisations will help to develop sustainable solutions such as data centre heat re-use or alternative power sources
The data centre research at RISE is based in Luleå, Sweden, and RISERISE is owned by the Swedish state and supported by EU funds. Collaborating with universities, industries and the public sector, RISE performs industrial research and supports innovation in order to support sustainable growth by strengthening industry competitiveness and renewal.
Innovative testing centre
Through the partnership, Vertiv will support the Infrastructure and Cloud Research and Test Environment (ICE), a data centre testbed providing access to study results and experts, as well as publications and demonstrations by RISE and engagement in small research and development studies.
RISE offers its partners a large-scale test environment with data centre modules, climate and heat boxes, wind tunnels, edge and liquid cooling testbeds, and the ability to take simulations and concepts to the point of implemented demonstrations and tests for data collection and analysis.
“RISE demonstrates technology leadership in applied research, which makes them a perfect partner for us at Vertiv. This will help us lead the industry into the new era of sustainable large-scale cloud data centres, enterprise and edge applications,” said Vertiv CTO, Stephen Liang.
“RISE is playing a leading role in driving sustainability across Europe and Vertiv is ideally placed to provide it with forward-looking engineering solutions for the data centre industry and beyond,” said Giordano Albertazzi, Vertiv president, EMEA. “Data centres are a critical part of the digital infrastructure. Efficiency and sustainability are a strong focus for the industry and are becoming increasingly important. New technologies, system solutions and components need to be ideated, developed, tested and verified before hitting the market. We see our partnership with RISE being a big part of that.”
Heat recovery initiatives
Vertiv will also support RISE’s various heat recovery initiatives which utilise heat expelled from data centres for various applications, like mealworm and vertical farming, biomass drying or district heating systems – with the recent feasibility study aiming at achieving 90-95°C supply water temperature (SWT) for district heating. Other projects in Vertiv and RISE’s research pipeline include load balancing, full life-cycle assessments of data centres and all their components, homomorphic encryption machine learning, autonomous digital infrastructure and self-healing systems, fuel cells, a digital carbon counter for end-users, new cooling methods and thermal management systems that support heat reuse and circular economy.
“We want to come closer to the industrial needs and a partnership helps the dialogue and direct bi-lateral collaboration. This way we can continue to develop our thought leadership together with our partners,” says Tor Björn Minde, Director ICE Data centre at RISE.
Green endeavours
Working with RISE is the latest in a series of initiatives Vertiv has made around sustainability and the wider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) arena. Vertiv is part of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA) and the European Data Centre Association (EUDCA) and contributes to the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact with the aim to meet the European Commission’s goal for climate-neutral data centres by 2030. Vertiv and RISE are also members of the E2P2 Tech Consortium, which leads low-carbon fuel cell development to power data centres.
Vertiv’s insights into 2022 data centre trends can be seen here.
