Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and the Spanish electrical group Ingeteam announced on 15 October that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to distribute, integrate and jointly develop power infrastructure for data centers in the United States. The agreement is non-binding, and the companies call it a first step. The release gives no capacity, no value and no timetable.
Who brings what
MHI offers its work in integrated power, cooling and energy management, plus a North American service network through Concentric. Ingeteam, which says it has more than 4,000 employees in 15 countries, contributes rotating electrical machines, power electronics, control and automation, battery storage, and power quality and grid stability technology.
In the near term, MHI is to make Ingeteam's power conversion products and software available to US data center customers, and the two will look at building selected Ingeteam technology into MHI's own energy infrastructure designs. Medium-voltage distribution, energy management systems and other equipment for high-density computing are listed for later, subject to technical and commercial evaluation.
The problem the release starts from
Three pressures are named: more power per rack, longer waits for a grid connection, and power quality problems from AI workloads whose demand moves quickly. Harmonic distortion and voltage imbalance are the two effects the release picks out. MHI's head of data center and energy management is quoted as saying the task is no longer to secure power but to deliver power of a quality AI hardware can live with.
A question for the genset side
Nothing in the release concerns backup generators, and it would be wrong to read it that way. Still, power quality does not stop at the transformer. Where a standby or prime-power set carries or shares the load of a hall, the interface between set, switchgear, UPS and the load itself is where the awkward findings come out at commissioning (load bank testing only shows part of it). It helps to know early who owns that interface.
A partnership of two suppliers also means two sets of drawings. Ask for a single party that answers for the combined result. As for the MOU itself, it is an intention. The first named project will say more than the announcement did.
Sources: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Investing.com