Battery energy storage system (BESS) vendors are touting their qualifications to be Nvidia DSX Ready, the recently announced partner program to help hyperscalers identify energy vendors that meet design requirements for AI factories.

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution, Japan’s Hitachi Energy and America’s Tesla are the first battery storage vendors that have met the Nvidia DSX AI factory reference design requirements.

The Nvidia program is designed to unify AI factory design and operations across compute, networking, power, cooling, facilities and software. The program was initially launched with two categories: BESS and cooling distribution units (CDUs). Additional categories in AI infrastructure and software will be rolled out over time, Nvidia said.

For BESS vendors, Nvidia said partners run the required qualification tests and submit supporting data for Nvidia review and approval within a defined qualification boundary. This does not replace site-level engineering or site-level stability, the company added.

Energy infrastructure need

Hitachi said that the growing electricity demand from training and deployment of AI models and from data centers is putting extreme pressure on power systems and the grid. And as facilities grow and computing capacity expands, energy infrastructure will have to be put in place to respond quickly to demand fluctuations.

BESS is designed to support power continuity by responding to changing load conditions and applicable grid requirements, Hitachi said. Additionally, the BESS system supports:

• Demand response
• Energy cost optimization
• Stabilization of dynamic AI workloads

The core aspect of the Nvidia DSX Ready program is ensuring compatibility with the reference architecture to help standardize the design of power infrastructure for AI factories. Ultimately, it will help data centers to integrate renewable power and provide backup power when it is needed.