In this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show, DCF Editor in Chief Matt Vincent speaks with Uptime Institute research analyst Max Smolaks about the infrastructure forces reshaping AI data centers from power and racks to cooling, economics, and the question of whether the boom is sustainable.
Smolaks unpacks a surprising on-ramp to todayโs AI buildout: former cryptocurrency mining operators that โdiscoveredโ underutilized pockets of power in nontraditional locationsโand are now pivoting into AI campuses as GPU demand strains conventional markets. The conversation then turns to what OCP 2025 revealed about rack-scale AI: heavier, taller, more specialized racks; disaggregated โcompute/power/networkโ rack groupings; and a white space that increasingly looks purpose-built for extreme density.
From there, Vincent and Smolaks explore why liquid cooling is both inevitable and still resisted by many operatorsโalong with the software, digital twins, CFD modeling, and new commissioning approaches emerging to manage the added complexity. On the power side, they discuss the industryโs growing alignment around 800V DC distribution and what it signals about Nvidiaโs outsized influence on next-gen data center design.
Finally, the conversation widens into load volatility and the economics of AI infrastructure: why โspikyโ AI power profiles are driving changes in UPS systems and rack-level smoothing, and why long-term growth may hinge less on demand (which remains strong) than on whether AI profits broaden beyond a few major buyersโespecially as GPU hardware depreciates far faster than the long-lived fiber built during past tech booms.
A sharp, grounded look at the AI factory eraโand the engineering and business realities behind the headlines.
