Rajesh Gopinath
Abstract Title
Gigawatts at the Speed of AI: Power System Realities of the Next-Generation Data Center Campus
As a data center architect focused on multi-GW AI campuses at Oracle Cloud, I bring a practitioner’s perspective on the rapidly converging compute-energy nexus. The current pipeline of announced hyperscale AI training facilities already exceeds tens of gigawatts, driven by an overriding industry mandate for speed-to-power and massive scale. These campuses differ fundamentally from traditional cloud data centers: rack density is reaching 1MW, liquid cooling is now ubiquitous, higher voltage distribution 480Vac and 800Vdc are becoming the standard, and diesel generators are being replaced by large lithium-ion battery systems for both ride-through and power conditioning.
Energy supply is the binding constraint. Natural gas remains the dominant fuel of choice, with campuses strategically sited along interstate pipelines and in shale plays to secure firm fuel delivery. On-site gas turbines, reciprocating engines, and fuel-cell systems now deliver hundreds of megawatts in intentionally islanded configurations. These microgrids, however, expose a critical mismatch: synchronous AI training workloads exhibit extreme short-term variability (30–60 % swings in milliseconds), which rotating machines were never designed to follow, creating risks of mechanical resonance, accelerated wear, and power quality issues.
Grid-connected campuses present equally complex challenges. Data center designers, utilities, and grid operators are actively studying brownout response, management of dynamic loads, and the potential to use flexible compute loads to unlock latent transmission capacity. My discussion will highlight a few interesting developments: grid-forming inverters, hybrid BESS-turbine architectures for power and energy balancing, and energy storage elements tightly coupled with the IT equipment.
Biography
Rajesh Gopinath, PE is Data Center Architect at Oracle Cloud. His team designs and builds gigawatt-scale datacenters for GPU superclusters. He is currently focused on various power generation technologies, utility grid interactions, efficient power distribution within the data center, high density IT rack-level power and cooling, and power quality issues. Previously, Rajesh co-founded EdgeCloudLink, a data center startup where he designed and constructed the world's first, truly sustainable, zero-emission, zero-water, off-grid data center which uses hydrogen as primary power source. He has held product development and business management roles in Toshiba, AETI, and Bloom Energy. Rajesh received his Bachelor of Engineering from National Institute of Technology in Surat, India. He has a Master of Science in Power Electronics/Systems from Texas A&M University at College Station, TX and an MBA from University of Texas at Austin.
Contact
rajesh.gopinath@oracle.com