We are pleased to share that Alderbuck Energy has joined the Open Compute Project Foundation.
For those outside the data center infrastructure world, OCP may not be a familiar name. But if you are building, operating, or powering large-scale compute facilities, its influence is hard to overstate. The Open Compute Project was founded in 2011 when Facebook decided to open-source the hardware designs behind its Oregon data center, one it had built from the ground up to be 38 percent more energy efficient and 24 percent less expensive to operate than its previous facilities. The idea was straightforward: openly sharing hardware designs, specifications, and best practices would accelerate innovation across the industry faster than any single company could do alone.
That idea has proven out. Over 400 companies are now members of OCP, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, Intel, IBM, Dell, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. More than 8,000 engineers participate across working groups covering servers, storage, networking, rack design, power, cooling, and data center facilities. The specifications that come out of OCP have shaped how hyperscale data centers around the world are designed and built. As OCP puts it, today’s innovation is tomorrow’s standard.
OCP requires that all contributions meet at least three of its five core tenets: Efficiency, Impact, Openness, Scalability, and Sustainability. Solid-state transformer technology, and the Alderbuck platform specifically, maps to all five. Replacing multi-stage AC-to-DC conversion chains with a single integrated platform improves efficiency. Enabling faster, simpler grid connections for AI infrastructure has direct impact on how quickly that infrastructure can reach deployment. Open standards participation reflects a commitment to openness. Modular architecture scales from a single site to a fleet of facilities. And reducing conversion losses and equipment footprint contributes measurably to sustainability goals.
Alderbuck joined at a moment when OCP’s focus has shifted significantly toward power infrastructure. The demands of AI workloads have pushed rack power densities from single-digit kilowatts to over 100 kilowatts, and the industry is actively working to define the architecture that can support what comes next. The OCP Data Center Facilities Power Distribution working group is building that roadmap, with 800VDC distribution as the target architecture for next-generation AI facilities. Solid-state transformer technology is central to that transition, handling the medium-voltage conversion that 800VDC architectures require without the multi-stage conversion chain that conventional equipment demands.
That is where Alderbuck’s contribution fits. The Nexus Power Unit™ and PowerVectorAI™ platform are designed for exactly the integration challenge that OCP’s power distribution working group is working to standardize. Being part of that conversation while the specifications are still being written, rather than after they are finalized, is meaningful both for the industry and for the direction of our own product development.
We look forward to contributing to the working group and to the broader OCP community as this architecture matures. You can learn more about the Open Compute Project Foundation at opencompute.org.
