A 40-year-old technology built for this exact moment Absorption chillers produce chilled water the way a conventional chiller does, but they use heat instead of electricity to drive the refrigeration cycle. A generator uses hot water, steam, or exhaust gas to separate refrigerant vapor from a lithium bromide solution; the vapor condenses, evaporates under low pressure to produce the cooling effect, and is reabsorbed to close the loop. Because there’s no large electrically driven compressor, the electrical footprint is small: industry analysis puts absorption chillers at roughly 2 MW of cooling output for just 20–25 kW of electrical input, compared to 500 kW or more of electrical draw for a conventional chiller doing the same job. The technology has existed commercially for decades and never displaced electric chillers at scale, for one simple reason: it needs a steady, moderate-to-high-temperature heat source to run, and building a boiler specifically to feed one erased most of the savings. That missing piece is exactly what two current infrastructure trends are now supplying as a byproduct. Two trends CIOs are already funding that solve the “missing heat” problem 1. On-site power generation is becoming standard, not exceptional Grid interconnection delays in major data center markets now stretch into years, pushing hyperscale operators toward gas turbines, engines, and fuel cells built directly on campus — all of which reject substantial heat as a byproduct of making electricity. Bloom Energy already pairs its fuel-cell systems directly with absorption chillers at data center sites, using exhaust heat to generate chilled water and reduce reliance on the electric chiller plant. Some industry forecasts expect roughly a third of data centers to run fully on-site-powered campuses by 2030 — meaning this heat stream is a permanent feature of the infrastructure roadmap, not a one-off opportunity.

Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier, where he leads editorial strategy and coverage focused on the infrastructure powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy. A veteran B2B technology journalist with more than two decades of experience, Vincent specializes in the intersection of data centers, power, cooling, and emerging AI-era infrastructure. Since assuming the EIC role in 2023, he has helped guide Data Center Frontier’s coverage of the industry’s transition into the gigawatt-scale AI era, with a focus on hyperscale development, behind-the-meter power strategies, liquid cooling architectures, and the evolving energy demands of high-density compute, while working closely with the Digital Infrastructure Group at Endeavor Business Media to expand the brand’s analytical and multimedia footprint. Vincent also hosts The Data Center Frontier Show podcast, where he interviews industry leaders across hyperscale, colocation, utilities, and the data center supply chain to examine the technologies and business models reshaping digital infrastructure. Since its inception he serves as Head of Content for the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. Before becoming Editor in Chief, he served in multiple senior editorial roles across Endeavor Business Media’s digital infrastructure portfolio, with coverage spanning data centers and hyperscale infrastructure, structured cabling and networking, telecom and datacom, IP physical security, and wireless and Pro AV markets. He began his career in 2005 within PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division and later held senior editorial positions supporting brands such as Cabling Installation & Maintenance, Lightwave Online, Broadband Technology Report, and Smart Buildings Technology. Vincent is a frequent moderator, interviewer, and keynote speaker at industry events including the HPC Forum, where he delivers forward-looking analysis on how AI and high-performance computing are reshaping digital infrastructure. He graduated with honors from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing and lives in southern New Hampshire with

AI infrastructure: MediaTek will work with Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion ecosystem to enable customers to develop custom AI infrastructure designed to integrate with Nvidia rack-scale systems and AI factories. Local AI computing: The companies will continue to collaborate on multiple generations of Nvidia RTX Spark and DGX Spark PC chips, powering consumer PCs, AI developer supercomputers, and enterprise-class workstations, that integrate Nvidia GPUs with MediaTek SoCs. Automotive: MediaTek and Nvidia will continue developing platforms for AI-powered, software-defined vehicles in the era of physical AI.  “MediaTek is one of the world’s great semiconductor companies, with exceptional expertise in system-on-chip design, connectivity, leading performance and power efficiency,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, in a statement. “Together, we’re building platforms that bring Nvidia accelerated computing to new markets and give customers the freedom to create differentiated AI systems at enormous scale.” NVLink is a high-performance interface, but this move also helps lock in customers to the Nvidia platform, since NVLink Fusion is not about to hook up to AMD processors. For MediaTek, the Nvidia investment provides a big pile of cash and access to Nvidia’s infrastructure as it attempts to establish itself as a major supplier of custom data center silicon.

Fiber Becomes Part of the Build A decade ago, DC Blox might have prioritized land near existing fiber from AT&T, Verizon, Zayo or another established network provider. That calculation is different today. As data center campuses have grown and hyperscalers have become a larger share of the customer base, Wabik said connectivity has increasingly become another construction package associated with the project itself. “If Zayo or Verizon or AT&T just happens to be there close by, that’s a good thing,” he said. “But fiber construction is inherently anymore just part of the construction component.” That changes the site-selection question from Is there fiber nearby? to Can fiber be built here at the scale and diversity the customer requires? For DC Blox, Wabik said that can mean assessing whether sufficient public right-of-way exists to establish three or sometimes four diverse fiber paths into a data center. That distinction is important, as AI workloads push infrastructure into markets where power, land and energy options may be more abundant than established carrier density. The hyperscalers themselves have also become major network builders. Wabik characterized them provocatively as today’s telecom providers, pointing to the scale of terrestrial fiber they commission as well as the growing role of companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta in subsea cable development. The point is less that traditional carriers have disappeared than that hyperscalers increasingly design, commission and control enormous portions of the connectivity required to support their own infrastructure. DC Blox now sees requests for 864-count fiber as routine and, in some cases, 1,728-count cable. That would have been difficult to imagine during an earlier era when a handful of fibers from an established carrier could satisfy a data center’s connectivity requirements. AI-Scale Fiber Gets Physical The scale becomes clearer when the discussion moves from abstract network

For decades, data centers consumed electricity much like other large commercial customers: power arrived from the utility, while batteries and diesel generators stood behind it to protect the load. AI is starting to break that model. As data center campuses grow toward hundreds of megawatts and, in some cases, gigawatt scale, developers are increasingly taking responsibility for an energy system that once sat largely outside the data center boundary. Natural gas supply, onsite generation, fuel cells, batteries, controls and the behavior of the compute load itself are increasingly becoming parts of the same infrastructure system. That was the central thread running through “Power First: The New Playbook for Delivering AI Data Centers,” an Aug. 4 session at the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit 2026 in Reston, Virginia. Moderated by Fengrong Li, Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, the panel brought together Jim Summers, CEO of GPC Infrastructure; Shankar Achanta, EVP and Chief Product and Technology Officer at FuelCell Energy; Judith Judson, Executive Vice President at Calibrant Energy; and Yuval Bachar, Founder and CEO of EdgeCloudLink. The discussion began with the immediate constraint — the grid cannot deliver capacity on the timetable AI developers increasingly require — but quickly moved beyond the familiar concept of “bridge power.” The larger question was what happens when the data center itself becomes an energy system. From Backup Power to Prime Power Behind-the-meter generation is not new. What has changed is its role and scale. “Traditionally, behind-the-meter generation has been for backup and the sizes were smaller,” Achanta said. “But what they’re seeing is the demand for the power is growing rapidly due to the data center load.” Interconnection queues, transmission limitations and equipment supply constraints are pushing onsite generation into what Achanta called the “front seat,” supplying primary power rather than waiting behind the

The joint reference design appears in Trane’s Continuum Rubin DSX and Eaton’s Beam Rubin DSX platforms. The goal is a pre-coordinated architecture stretching from grid power to the chip rather than requiring developers and engineering teams to independently assemble electrical and mechanical systems for each project. The systems are also intended to exchange operating data. Rather than cooling and electrical systems responding independently, the systems can instead exchange leading indicators and respond more dynamically to changing operating requirements. This is an approach that closely mirrors NVIDIA’s larger DSX philosophy. Trane and Eaton are also designing the architecture to accommodate future liquid-cooling and direct-current power-distribution technologies. That future-proofing matters as rack power densities continue to rise. An electrical and cooling plant optimized for one GPU generation may otherwise become a constraint several hardware generations later. The Broader DSX Buildout The Lancium, Cloverleaf and Trane/Eaton agreements are part of a considerably wider expansion of the DSX ecosystem. Earlier deals show NVIDIA moving into many of the same infrastructure layers through partnerships spanning powered land, electrical design, digital twins and even project financing. In May, NVIDIA and IREN announced plans to support as much as 5 GW of DSX-aligned AI infrastructure across IREN’s global development pipeline, with the companies identifying IREN’s 2 GW Sweetwater campus in Texas as an expected flagship DSX deployment. NVIDIA also received a five-year right to purchase up to 30 million IREN shares at $70 each, representing a potential investment of as much as $2.1 billion. The infrastructure ecosystem has widened as well. Siemens, NVIDIA and Fluence, incorporating nVent design considerations, have developed a DSX Vera Rubin-aligned electrical, power and controls architecture extending from the utility connection to the rack. ABB is integrating digital models of medium-voltage switchgear, power-distribution equipment and UPS systems into the Omniverse DSX Blueprint, while Vertiv