• New Schneider Electric RapidScale Modular Data Center Reference Design offers a flexible hardware blueprint built to support the NVIDIA Vera Rubin Platform as the market transitions from traditional building methods to manufacturing AI capacity at-scale
  • RapidScale, Schneider Electric's portfolio for prefabricated modular data center solutions, combines 90% of Schneider Electric solutions with end-to-end lifecycle support to accelerate deployment, improve predictability and reduce project risk
  • New time study co-authored with Compass Datacenters found that prefabricated white space modules cut onsite installation time by 80%
     

BERLIN, Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Schneider Electric, a global energy technology leader, today announced its RapidScale Modular Data Center Reference Design 115. The new reference design provides a validated, pre-engineered blueprint for high-density AI infrastructure, streamlining onsite logistics and planning while accelerating deployment times for AI factories globally.

The design brings together the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform and innovative liquid cooling technology, built to maximize processing power while keeping energy use under control. By using advanced fluid cooling with smart temperature controls, it ensures data centers provide peak compute performance without risking overheating or wasting power.

By integrating modularity across the broader infrastructure architecture, this approach transitions operators toward repeatable, risk-tested AI infrastructure blueprints rather than relying solely on custom-engineered data centers. The blueprints combine power, liquid cooling, IT, software, and lifecycle services into a scalable, industrialized delivery model.

Addressing Market Shifts and Critical AI Infrastructure Challenges

The new modular data center reference design comes at a time of rapid growth and transformation across the data center industry, as processing needs for artificial intelligence fundamentally reshape infrastructure requirements.

What were once considered benefits of prefabricated modular infrastructure — speed, predictability, repeatability, and quality — are now essential requirements for AI-scale data center deployment. Schneider Electric estimates that global data center capacity will increase by 170 GW by 2030, reaching 300 GW in total, or 2.3 times the 2025 installed base. By the end of the decade, AI workloads are expected to account for approximately 65% of total demand. This growth is accelerating the need for quick deployment of AI infrastructure, driving simultaneous increases in investment, power demand, and capacity requirements.

Developers relying on traditional stick-built construction face increasing challenges in keeping pace with demand. Meanwhile, high-density computing environments intensify power and cooling requirements, creating complex integration challenges, and increasing pressure on grid capacity, energy efficiency, and regulatory compliance. Skilled labor shortages further complicate these challenges by creating workforce bottlenecks and extending installation timelines for complex AI deployments.

Quantifying the Advantages of Prefabricated White Space

Separately, a new research paper co-authored with hyperscale developer, Compass Datacenters, ‘Prefabricated White Space Module Time Study: Lessons from a High-Density Liquid-Cooled Deployment’ (White Paper 238), highlights the quantitative deployment efficiency gains of shifting from traditional white space builds to prefabricated modular IT pods. According to the study performed at a Compass hyperscale data center campus, prefabricated modular pods shorten onsite installation time from 75.5 hours to just 15 hours per pod, delivering an 80% reduction in onsite installation duration. By shifting critical assembly, integration and verification to a controlled factory environment, data center operators can reduce on-site labor and complexity while bringing AI compute capacity online faster.

“The white space brings together the greatest concentration of systems and trades in the smallest footprint, with each installation dependent on the one before it,” said Adil Attlassy, Chief Technology Officer of Compass Datacenters. “Working jointly with Schneider Electric, we engineered a prefabricated module that integrates these systems into a single assembly, eliminating the need to coordinate multiple scopes of work onsite. By reducing onsite installation time by 80%, we accelerate deployment and help our customers bring their workloads online sooner.”

Schneider Electric RapidScale: An Integrated Industrialized Architecture for the AI Lifecycle

RapidScale is Schneider Electric’s end-to-end industrialized approach for designing, delivering, and supporting prefabricated modular AI infrastructure at scale. RapidScale utilizes deep engineering across power, cooling, IT space, software, and lifecycle services to help customers shift away from complex custom engineering and toward repeatable, risk-tested blueprints. This reference design also represents a foundational first step toward supporting the NVIDIA DSX POD reference design, which enables factory integration and validation of Vera Rubin AI infrastructure before shipment to accelerate time to first token.

In today’s market, supply chain management becomes the new critical component in reducing scheduling uncertainty and project risk. Schneider Electric addresses this challenge through a globally integrated supply chain that spans from individual components to complete modular solutions. Backed by manufacturing capacity that has grown fourfold since 2025, Schneider Electric’s footprint spans eight primary sites totaling 1.35 million square feet of capacity, complemented by three additional facilities and 12 partner sites across 10 countries.

Leveraging its broad portfolio, RapidScale incorporates approximately 90% in-house manufactured equipment. This ensures predictable performance, supply chain certainty, and full lifecycle support from day-one deployment through long-term optimization.

"As AI infrastructure scales at unprecedented speed, customers need solutions that are standardized, reliable, and deployable with certainty," said Manish Kumar, Executive Vice President, Secure Power & Data Centers at Schneider Electric. "Through our portfolio of reference designs and prefabricated solutions, combined with global supply chain strength and lifecycle expertise, we help AI factory operators accelerate time to value while building the resilient infrastructure required for next-generation compute."

Schneider Electric is recognized by Omdia¹ as the No. 1 global manufacturer of prefabricated power solutions, the No. 1 manufacturer of prefabricated modular data centers in North America, and one of the top six providers globally outside North America.

Schneider Electric will showcase its new modular reference design and prefabricated solutions portfolio, RapidScale, at NVIDIA GTC Berlin 2026. Visit booth 3041 to learn more.

The modular reference design has been validated to ANSI standards for U.S. deployments, with plans to extend the framework to support IEC standards for global implementations in the future. 

Press contact: mediarelations@se.com

Related resources:  

¹ Omdia, Prefab Modular Data Centers: Speed, Repeatability, and Risk Transfer, May 2026. Market share in prefabricated modular data centers and prefabricated power. Results are not an endorsement of Schneider Electric. Any reliance on these results is at the third party’s own risk.

About Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is a global energy technology leader, driving efficiency and sustainability by electrifying, automating, and digitalizing industries, businesses, and homes. Its technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, enhancing performance, resilience, and sustainability. The portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-defined architectures, AI-powered systems, digital services, and expert advisory. With 160,000 employees and 1 million partners in over 100 countries, Schneider Electric is consistently ranked among the world’s most sustainable companies. 

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