Next Gen AI Data Centers with Industry-proven Direct Current Power Supply

Author: Hartwig Stammberger, Open Direct Current Alliance (ODCA); also works for Eaton Germany Collection: 2026-OCP-EMEA-Summit-Executive-Sessions

Summary

Hartwig Stammberger presents on behalf of the Open Direct Current Alliance (ODCA), an international nonprofit organization with ~90 members. The talk argues that DC power distribution is not a future concept but an already-proven technology in industrial settings, and that the data center industry can leverage this industrial experience to deploy high-efficiency, 800 V DC power infrastructure. The core case is simple: the inefficiency of converting AC → DC → AC → DC throughout the power delivery chain wastes energy and requires more copper infrastructure. DC avoids these conversions and produces two quantified benefits: ~50% copper reduction and ~30% power loss reduction versus equivalent AC distribution for the same power delivery.

Three industrial proof points are presented: (1) Mercedes-Benz Factory 56 — a 2 MW building infrastructure using DC as standard for heating, cooling, ventilation, and factory automation; adopted 800 V DC as the company standard for building infrastructure up to 1,500 V; (2) Schalbau — a greenfield factory (warehouse, testing, office), operational 2.5 years, proving 30% reduction in grid connection power and 1/3 lower total building power bill versus conventional AC approach; (3) Phoenix Contact — all-electric building with DC backbone plus thermal-seasonal energy storage (water tank: freezes in winter → heat pump source; melts in summer → cooling source using phase change energy).

On the data center side, the OCP Mount Diablo project (800 V DC and 400 V DC distribution) and Nvidia's white paper promoting 800 V DC (as enabling less space and higher efficiency for delivering power to chips) are cited as industry validation. ODCA has contributed to the OCP Low Voltage DC Power Distribution white paper (450 pages) covering voltages, polarities, and protection. ODCA's formal collaboration with Current OS Foundation represents a combined membership aligned on DC adoption. The top three adoption barriers are: (1) planner/installer awareness and familiarity; (2) product availability (data center pull is creating supply); (3) the chicken-and-egg dynamic between product development and deployment.