Huawei unveils AI data center solution at Dubai summit

Huawei and the International Telecommunication Union jointly release the White Paper on the Safety of Lithium-ion Battery Applications in Data Centers on Tuesday in Dubai. (Photo by Cui Haipei/chinadaily.com.cn)

Huawei on Tuesday released its AI solution for the data center industry, as over 500 tech leaders and experts gathered in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, for the Global Data Center Facility Summit 2025.

Charles Yang, Huawei's senior vice-president, said the "golden era" for computing infrastructure has arrived. "AI is transforming industries, and businesses are racing to stay competitive by building local AI platforms," he said.

The Chinese tech giant predicted that the global AI DC capacity will exceed 100 GW by 2028, generating a market space of over $600 billion in the energy infrastructure sector alone.

But growth brings hurdles. Yang, also Huawei's president of global marketing, sales and services, listed three urgent challenges: Higher reliability, faster roll-out and greater energy demand.

Huawei's solution includes a power supply system with an isolated architecture, such as a dedicated prefabricated container or remote deployment, which can improve system reliability and ensure stable operation of data centers, he said.

According to him, innovations like modular design and green power guarantee the PowerPOD system — a prefabricated, containerized power solution — greatly cut construction time and reduces onsite labor by 70 percent.

The summit, themed "Power the Digital Era Forward", focused on a win-win future for the industry in the intelligent computing era.

The meeting showcased Huawei's PowerPOD demo truck, a 40-ft container with ultra-high protection that supports a capacity of 2.4 MW per container. The number can be increased to 3.2 MW through customized capacity expansion, meeting the higher power density requirement of the intelligent computing era.

Bob He, vice-president of Huawei Digital Power, said, "The solution realizes one power system per container and is deployed outdoors, meeting the requirements of on-demand deployment and phased capacity expansion. With a modular design, the PowerPOD is prefabricated and commissioned in the factory, shortening the delivery period from 28 weeks to 18 weeks."

"In the AI era, downtime isn't an option. Every piece of infrastructure must be fail-safe," he said, adding that the solution includes lithium batteries with built-in safety systems and "isolated" power architectures to minimize outage risks.

Energy efficiency is another focus. Huawei's modular UPS5000-H system boosts efficiency to 99.1 percent in optimal mode, a critical upgrade as data centers consume more power.

Huawei also partnered with the International Telecommunication Union and major cloud providers to release the White Paper on the Safety of Lithium-ion Battery Applications in Data Centers, stressing the importance of remote deployment of batteries and advanced fire suppression systems to prevent accidents.