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Next-gen power tech is humming under the hood of Nvidia's GTC developer conference that kicked off this week.

The big picture: AI data center developers are embracing energy efficiency and next-gen power tech to deliver the next phase of growth.

What they're saying: "Everybody is looking for land, power and shell. Once you build it, you are power-limited," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during his keynote.

Because sites are power-limited, "you want to make sure that the architecture is as optimized as you can," Huang pointed out. 

Huang said in the future, every company will study the performance per watt of their data centers as a key metric tied to revenue and tokens produced.

Inside the room: Huang unveiled a new product that combines Nvidia chips with those from startup Groq, which specializes in low-cost, fast and energy-efficient chips for inference. 

Catch up quick: Nvidia is pushing the industry to redesign data centers to be far more power dense, using direct current (DC) and a high-voltage (800 volts) environment.

Today, most data center server racks rely on lower-voltage (48–54 volt) power distribution, and mostly alternating current, or AC.

The transition is a major opportunity for next-gen power gear makers, and could lead to the commercialization of emerging technologies that had previously been waiting in the wings, like solid-state transformers.

Driving the news: Power gear companies traveled to GTC in San Jose, Calif., this week to show off their next-gen tech that can help Nvidia and its partners build more efficient data centers. 

Case(s) in point: Liquid cooling startup Accelsius, based in Austin, Texas, launched an in-rack cooling product that uses warm liquid (instead of chilled water) that can cut data center energy use by removing power-hungry water chillers. 

"Nvidia is the powerhouse. They drive the designs. They give signals on what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, what's needed or what's going to be needed," says Josh Claman, CEO of Accelsius. 

Solar and power tech company SolarEdge, based in Israel, used GTC to release a new report on how data centers could adopt next-gen power architecture, including its own solid-state transformer that is under development. 

Siemens said Tuesday that it's invested more than $165 million across factories in North and South Carolina to increase production of data center-related electrical equipment orders.

State of play: The focus on energy efficiency comes at a time when data center developers are facing local opposition, financing risks, and demand that far exceeds available power.

New data center capacity plans fell in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 25 GW, compared to 50 GW in the previous quarter, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie. 

"We're approaching the period where the hockey stick growth has started to taper off," says Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of grid edge for Wood Mackenzie. 

The bottom line: Energy efficiency data center power architecture will drive a new wave of startups and investments in the coming years. 

Next-gen power tech in the spotlight at Nvidia's GTC

The focus on energy efficiency comes as data centers face new challenges.

Illustration of interconnected gears bearing lightning bolt motifs.

Next-gen power tech is humming under the hood of Nvidia&#x27;s GTC developer conference that kicked off this week.The big picture: AI data center developers are embracing energy efficiency and next-gen power tech to deliver the next phase of growth.

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Next-gen power tech in the spotlight at Nvidia's GTC

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