Power management is high on the minds of modern data center managers, even as electricity suppliers are scrambling to keep up with demands from AI in coming years.
Meanwhile, makers of electronics including Texas Instruments are trying to solve the problem from the demand side. The topic has been front and center at 2025 Applied Power Electronics Conference in Atlanta this week.
TI on Monday introduced the industry’s first 48V integrated hot-swap eFuse, the TPS1685, with power-path protection. It also showcased three GaN power stages at APEC, the LMG3650R035, LMG3650R025 and LMG3650R070.
Smart and more efficient semiconductors are key ingredients in the various ways the electronics industry is going to get prepared for future demand, said Robert Taylor, general manager of industrial power design services at TI. Advanced chips will drive AI computational power, while analog semiconductors will be key to maximizing energy efficiency, he said.
Data centers are shifting to 48 volt power architectures for better efficiency to support CPUs, GPUs and accelerators for AI. The new TI 48V stackable integrated hot-swap eFuse with power-path protection is designed to help data center designers address high power processing greater than 6 kilowatts with a scalable device that reduces size by half compared to what’s on the market.
“Our customer base has expectations of power systems that are increasing tremendously, not just for chips using power but the entire infrastructure,” Taylor told reporters. “System power level is increasing at a crazy amount. With the level of power needed any sort of savings is welcome by data center owners. Any time we’re able to limit power, customers are very, very interested.”
He said the TPS 1686 is now available while customers can inspect evaluation models of the GaN power stages. Dell is developing a server with TI’s GaN, showing 96% system level efficiency.
With AI, the biggest concern is going to be where electricity is coming from, Taylor added. He said data centers take up to 4% of global energy production a number expected to reach 10% by 2030. “We don’t have a way to get to that level of production...TI is going through all these different infrastructure changes as well,” he said.