To address the energy optimization and sustainability challenges brought by artificial intelligence (AI), French industrial conglomerate Schneider Electric has recently introduced end-to-end AI-ready data center solutions designed to meet the industry's substantial energy demands, according to one of its executives.

These solutions aim to address the industry's growing energy demands by enhancing efficiency, sustainability and scalability for AI-driven workloads, especially in China and the United States.

"As data centers are the backbone of this AI infrastructure and are the critical enabler of efficiency and decarbonization, we must scale quickly to seize the AI opportunity while remaining sustainable," said Pankaj Sharma, executive vice-president of the secure power division at Schneider Electric.

Schneider Electric acquired the US-based liquid cooling and thermal management company Motivair Corp earlier this year and announced an investment plan to support its efforts in pioneering innovative and sustainable data center solutions over the next three years.

"The data center industry urgently needs transformative infrastructure that can power the most advanced applications efficiently, sustainably and at scale," said Sharma.

The global data center power demand was expected to double between 2022 and 2026, statistics from the Paris-based International Energy Agency showed.

The French company said that as demand for data centers rises among Chinese companies across various industries seeking to maintain their digital competitiveness, it will allocate more resources to support power quality management and carbon reduction efforts in the country in the coming years.

According to a report published by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology earlier this year, China accounted for 36 percent of the 1,328 AI large models created globally. The US has the largest share at 44 percent.

This rapid expansion in scale and the continuous increase in power density present unprecedented challenges in China. To gain an edge in the wave of AI, industry players must urgently transform these challenges into growth opportunities, said the report.

The rise of AI large models has revitalized the traditional internet sector, spurred new business models and enhanced diverse consumer and industrial applications, said Sun Fuquan, former vice-president of the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development.

Global market research company International Data Corp predicts that China's data center services market will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.9 percent from 2023 to 2027, with an estimated market size of 307.5 billion yuan in 2027.