AI 竞赛长期以来由企业部署 GPU 的速度决定。如今，埃隆·马斯克等领袖表示，他们预计物理瓶颈——包括为数据中心供电所需的电力短缺——将拖慢竞争对手的步伐。随着公用事业公司警告新接入需等待数年，“获电速度”，即数据中心能多快接通电力，已成为行业的核心关注点。
The AI race has long been defined by how quickly firms can stand up GPUs. Now, Elon Musk and other leaders say they expect physical bottlenecks, including a shortage of electricity needed to power data centers, to slow down competitors. As utilities warn of multiyear waits for new connections, “speed to power,” or how quickly a data center can get electricity flowing, has become an industry mantra.
通讯编辑兼撰稿人 Steve LeVine 主持了一场讨论，与会的三位领袖分别从电网到服务器机架，致力于寻找更智能架构的不同解决方案。
editor and writer of newsletter Steve LeVine moderated a discussion with three leaders pursuing different solutions for smarter architecture, from the grid to the server rack.
William Mao，Delta Electronics（德尔塔电子）能源基础设施副总裁Allan Schurr，ERock 首席商务官Brian Janous，Cloverleaf Infrastructure（四叶草基础设施）联合创始人产能迷思据 Janous 称，问题不那么在于寻找千兆瓦级电力，而在于优化利用。他表示，电网平均约 45% 的容量处于闲置状态，因为电网必须预留空间以应对用电高峰。
William Mao, Vice President of Energy Infrastructure, Delta Electronics Allan Schurr, Chief Commercial Officer, ERock Brian Janous, Co-founder, Cloverleaf Infrastructure The capacity myth According to Janous, the problem is less about finding gigawatts and more about optimizing them. The grid is underused by about 45% on average, Janous said, because it has to accommodate peaks in usage.
他说：“当公用事业公司说‘五年内没有电力’时，他们的意思是：我们没有足够的容量来满足最寒冷的冬夜和最炎热的夏日用电高峰。”他补充道，在一天中的大多数时段，现有能源足以满足数据中心的需求。（包括 GridCARE、Emerald AI、Cloverleaf 自身以及 Nvidia 在内的一些知名初创公司正试图探索如何利用这种闲置容量。）离网与微电网一些开发商选择自建电厂，而不愿等待公用事业公司的接入时间表。但 Schurr 表示，离网不一定是数据中心的长久良策。
“When a utility says ‘there’s no power for five years,’ what they’re saying is: we don’t have the capacity to meet the coldest winter nights and hottest summer days,” he said, adding that for most hours of the day, there’s enough energy to meet data center needs. (Some notable startups including GridCARE, Emerald AI, Cloverleaf itself as well as Nvidia are trying to figure out how to use such spare capacity.) Off-grid versus microgrid Some developers are building their own power plants rather than wait on public utilities’ timelines. But Schurr said going off-grid isn’t necessarily a good long-term solution for data centers.
他说：“这是一种碳排放极高、成本极高的承诺。”相反，他提倡建设微电网——一种可由多种能源供电的局部电源——作为过渡，直到接入公共电网。数据中心并入公共电网后，微电网仍可覆盖峰值需求，并在电网故障时维持供电。
“It’s a very high-carbon, high-cost commitment,” he said. Instead, he promoted the idea of building a microgrid—a localized power source powered by any number of sources—as a bridge until grid connections arrive. After the data center joins the public grid, the microgrid can still cover peak demand and keep the lights on if the grid goes down.
舒尔表示：“建一座输电变电站需要三到四年，而我们正在16个月内建设一座350兆瓦的微电网。”押注电网方面，克洛弗利夫寻找拥有闲置电网容量的场地，并在其周边开发“带电土地”。亚努斯说，公司已在18个月内交付了约7吉瓦的场地，另有10至12吉瓦正在筹备中。
“It takes three to four years to build a transmission substation,” Schurr said. “We’re building 350 MW microgrid in 16 months.”Betting on the grid Cloverleaf looks for sites with spare grid capacity and develops “powered land” around them. Janous said the company has delivered about 7 GW of sites in 18 months, with another 10–12 GW in the pipeline.
亚努斯同意舒尔的看法，认为单打独斗存在隐患。他指出，电网提供了一些难以复制的服务，比如平衡供需以保持电力稳定，以及在停电后重启系统。
Janous agreed with Schurr that going it alone has pitfalls, noting the grid provides services that are hard to replicate, like balancing supply and demand to keep power stable, and restarting the system after a blackout.
他说：“如果你必须在电表后面（换句话说，在公共电网之外）重建这些，还想着‘我所做的不过是建一座发电厂’，那你迟早会猛然醒悟。”
“If you have to recreate that behind the meter [in other words, off the public grid,] and think, ‘all I’m doing is building a single power plant,’ you’re in for a rude awakening,” he said.
简化通往机架的道路方面，毛目睹了电力基础设施从无人在意变成热门话题。
Simplifying the path to the rack Mao has watched power infrastructure go from an afterthought to a hot topic.
他说：“很长一段时间里，电子并不那么引人关注。现在这个领域实际上变得相当诱人，因为对这些诱人的电子有大量需求。”这种需求让人们关注电力到达数据中心门口之后会发生什么。台达正在应对从电网到机架之间的这一挑战。
“For a long time, the electron was not so interesting. Now the space is actually becoming pretty sexy because there’s a lot of demand for the sexy electrons,” he said. That demand puts a spotlight on what happens after power reaches the data center’s door. Delta is tackling that challenge between the grid to the rack.
毛解释说，电力在到达服务器机架之前通常要经过多个转换环节。台达的固态变压器以更少的环节将中压交流电转换为机架使用的800伏直流电，有可能减少能量损耗，同时减少故障点数量。
Mao explained that power typically passes through multiple conversion stages before reaching a server rack. Delta’s solid-state transformers convert medium-voltage AC to the 800-volt DC used by racks in fewer stages, potentially reducing energy losses, as well as reducing the number points of failure.
毛说：“我们不仅减少了配电链中的环节数量，还通过去掉一些中间电力层提高了可靠性。”
“Not only do we reduce the number of steps in the distribution chain, but also increase the reliability by removing some of the intermediate power layers,” Mao said.
解决AI用电激增问题方面，过去数据中心传统上消耗的是稳定、可预测的电力。毛指出，AI工作负载改变了这一局面。
Solving for AI surges In the past, data centers traditionally drew steady, predictable power. AI workloads, noted Mao, have changed the game.
他说：“如今有了AI，负载不再以千瓦计量，而是以兆瓦计量，而且它们在毫秒之间波动。”这些波动给电网带来了压力。
“Today with AI, loads no longer measure in kilowatts but in megawatts, and they fluctuate in milliseconds,” he said. Those swings strain the grid.
他说，管理这些电源需要更复杂的控制和缓冲，并补充道，Delta 的控制平台旨在协调不同的电源，从公用电网电力、天然气发电，到太阳能和燃料电池。毛辩称，清理工作应由数据中心自身承担，而非公用事业公司或其其他客户。
Managing them takes more sophisticated controls and buffering, he said, adding that Delta’s control platform is built to coordinate different power sources, from the utility grid power, natural gas generation, and to solar and fuel cells. Mao argued that the cleanup should fall to the data center itself, not the utility or its other customers.
展望未来，毛预计大型站点最常见的配置将是天然气发电机与储能系统相结合。核能也将发挥作用，他指出，微软与 Constellation Energy 签署了一份为期 20 年的协议，从宾夕法尼亚州重启的三哩岛反应堆购买电力，供其数据中心使用。“必须拥有这些大块电力，才能大幅推动事态发展，”他说。
Looking ahead, Mao expects the most common setup for large sites to pair natural gas generators with energy storage. Nuclear will play a role too, he said, pointing to a 20-year deal Microsoft signed with Constellation Energy to buy power from a restarted Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania for its data centers. “You have to have these large blocks of power to move the needle substantially,” he said.