Nvidia Corp., Google LLC and software startup Emerald AI Inc. have formed an industry consortium to promote the construction of flexible data centers.

The AI Energy Management Alliance, or AEMA, officially launched on Wednesday.

A flexible data center is a facility that cuts its power draw when the electrical grid is under strain. That usage reduction can take multiple forms. If household energy demand is expected to peak in the afternoon on a certain day, data center operators can schedule their AI training runs to avoid that time frame. Alternatively, they can draw power from on-site batteries instead of the grid.

Onsite batteries also have other benefits. If a utility is struggling to meet consumer demand on its own, data center operators can inject some of their stored electricity into the grid.

The AEMA’s three founding members are closely involved in the flexible data center ecosystem.

Google has developed what it calls demand response technologies to align its cloud facilities’ energy usage with grid requirements. In March, the company disclosed that its demand response capacity exceeds 1 gigawatt.

Nvidia offers a software tool called DSX Flex to data center operators that use its Rubin graphics cards. The application can optimize an AI facility’s grid usage, on-premise energy generation equipment and batteries. It makes optimization decisions based partly on signals from power utilities’ infrastructure.

Emerald AI, the third founding member of AEMA, is a startup that raised $150 million in funding last month. It counts Nvidia among its investors. The two companies are collaborating on a 100-megawatt data center in Manassas, Virginia that they describe as the “world’s first power-flexible AI factory.”

Emerald AI offers a software platform called Emerald Conductor that enables server clusters to lower their energy consumption when the grid is under stress. According to the company, the software also limits the impact of power draw reductions on AI workloads. Emerald Conductor will be used in the Manassas data center that Emerald AI is building with Nvidia.

AEMA is also backed by 18 other companies. The group includes Anthropic PBC, chipmaker Analog Devices Inc. and multiple utilities.

The consortium’s first priority will be to develop best practices for flexible data centers. According to AEMA, its best practices will cover details such as how facilities should respond to power outages. The goal is to encourage data center builders to implement those standards in new facilities before they’re powered on.

AEMA’s work will also cover other areas. It will seek to standardize the metrics that data center operators use to evaluate their power optimization efforts. Additionally, AEMA will encourage industry players to share technical data about their work. 

Photo: Nvidia