- GPUs are driving demand for higher-voltage rack designs
- Higher voltage racks will require special training and equipment to keep workers safe
- In 2022, an arc flash burned three workers at a Google data center in Iowa
As GPUs drive demand for more and higher-voltage electricity in data centers, operators could soon have a new level of safety hazard on their hands.
It’s common to talk about GPUs in terms of wattage drawn, but those chips are housed in server racks that provide a certain amount of voltage. The most common today, according to Flex president Chris Butler, is around 48 volts (V) of direct current (DC). But he noted Flex is working on 1 megawatt rack designs for customers that would draw between 400V and 800V DC – a nearly 10 to 20x increase in voltage.
“We have a lot of people that don’t realize how lethal power can be,” Flex president Chris Butler told Fierce. While Butler acknowledged that 48V can still kill, he argued it’s a lot easier to manage from a safety perspective than 800V. An 800V electric arc flash in a data center would be a “catastrophic event,” he said. An arc flash is a kind of electrical explosion.
The idea of an arc flash or electrocution in a data center isn’t hypothetical. In 2022, an arc flash burned three workers at a Google data center in Iowa.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) classifies electrocution as one of the “fatal four” top causes of death in the construction industry and leading causes of death in the workplace overall. In 2024, OSHA updated its guidance for electric arc prevention for the first time in nearly two decades to require increased use of personal protective equipment for those working on energized projects.
From a data center perspective, this all means three things. First, they will need a lot more workers with specialized knowledge, training and gear for dealing with high-power electricity. Second, they will need redesigned racks that provide additional safety for those working in and around these voltages. And third, they will need to come up with updated emergency protocols for their facilities.
All of this is easier said than done given AC is still more widely used than DC (though the rise of solar and electric vehicle technologies has made DC a bit more common). Still, Butler said there is a precedent for using higher voltages in data centers – citing his own experiences in China where they were deploying 240V DC back in 2019. But OSHA doesn’t exist there, he noted.
As hyperscalers prepare to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into building data centers for high-performance AI workloads, “the safety card is one hurdle people will have to get over,” Butler concluded.