Empowering AI Deployments: Essential Criteria for Selecting Intelligent Rack PDUs

June 6, 2025

The data center is experiencing a dynamic shift, and outdated legacy rack power distribution units (PDUs) are struggling to keep pace. The primary consideration is a significant increase in power demand. Only a few years ago, data centers consumed 5 to 10 megawatts, but now 50-megawatt facilities are becoming the norm. To manage this unprecedented shift, data centers require intelligent, higher-capacity PDUs to effectively regulate power and energy usage.

While the traditional role of the rack PDU is to distribute incoming power to IT equipment in a rack, that role is evolving. In addition to distributing power, today’s PDUs can control electrical power, monitor power quality, provide power redundancy, and track efficiency and uptime. Many factors contribute to this evolution, with artificial intelligence (AI) and its power consumption being the most significant.

AI infrastructure demands significantly more power than conventional IT infrastructure. A single Nvidia DGX H100 server can consume up to 10 kW of power. Over the past few years, data center racks have increased their power consumption from 10kW or 15kW to 50kW or more.

As such, data center operators require new capabilities from their PDUs beyond high amperage. PDUs should be networked to provide environmental monitoring capabilities, measure power quality at the PDUs' inlets and outlets, and enhance efficiencies within the infrastructure. Legacy rack PDUs lack these capabilities, prompting data center operators to adopt next-generation intelligent PDUs that support AI workloads. Without adequate power distribution, monitoring, control, and power quality management, the risk of downtime is simply too high.

Criteria for Selecting Rack PDUs to Power AI Infrastructure

When evaluating PDUs for powering AI infrastructure, it’s important to understand which key features and capabilities are necessary for successful deployment:

• Designed for AI: AI infrastructure requires additional hardware within the rack, such as PDUs, cabling, or cooling units, all of which can obstruct airflow. PDUs designed for AI infrastructure are built for higher-density environments, capable of handling larger loads and providing intelligent metering capabilities.
• Added redundancy: PDUs equipped with outlet-level power monitoring identify hidden issues in your power chain, verify redundancy, and enable more efficient load balancing by providing detailed measurements from each server’s power supply.
• Form Factor: It’s important to review the functionality and form factors of PDUs, including 0U vertical units and horizontal 1U to 3U units, to ensure they fit different physical infrastructures.
• Remote monitoring: The ability to monitor power usage, temperature, and other critical parameters gives admin teams greater command and control capabilities.
• Customizable configurations: Supporting different outlet types or power distribution options enhances versatility and flexibility.
• Intelligence: Features such as power sequencing and load balancing can automatically help prevent overloads while optimizing power distribution.
• Efficiency: Many data centers strive to operate within limited power envelopes, making power utilization efficiency a critical metric. Advanced power quality monitoring and metrics deliver real-time insights into essential power quality, energy efficiency, and equipment health at the cabinet.
• Security: Power monitoring and management features can be targeted by cyberattacks. The best PDUs provide a comprehensive range of security capabilities, including support for data encryption, user authentication and management, and firewall protection.

How Legrand Meets AI Demands

At Legrand, we’re committed to providing PDUs that support AI infrastructure. We offer a range of rack PDUs under our Raritan and Server Technology brands, including vertical (zero RU) and horizontal (rackmount) form factors to accommodate different physical infrastructures, with options for Basic, Network Metered, and Network Switched levels of intelligence.

PDU features include color LCD management panels, built-in failover power, circuit breaker trip alarms, remote access and control, and security controls. Our intelligent PDUs also capture sensor data on environmental conditions such as temperature, vibration, and humidity and security factors such as proximity and motion. We offer a suite of SmartSensors for monitoring environmental conditions, water detection, security, and Sensor Hubs to help manage operations more effectively and protect mission-critical IT assets.

As AI adoption accelerates, leading-edge advanced PDUs will help data centers execute the dynamic shift to much higher capacities, keeping them relevant and functional well into the future.

To learn more about our intelligent rack PDUs and their capabilities, visit www.raritan.com/PX4.