Exploring AI’s Present And Future With Eaton

AI isn’t some distant possibility—it’s a reality that’s already here, influencing everything from the smart devices in our homes to major advances in transportation and health care. AI is everywhere, shaping the world around us.

Sydney Neely, Video Content Creator and Host at The Channel Company speaks with Tony Locker, vice president of Product Management at Eaton about how AI is revolutionizing industries, and what exciting advancements lie ahead.

Let’s start with the big picture. How is AI reshaping the industry as a whole? What are some of the major changes you’ve seen recently due to AI?

Tony: We've seen significant changes over the last couple of years. I break it down into two different categories.

The first is just a shortage of power. These AI servers with GPU chips draw significantly more power, they generate more heat and they’re physically bigger. There's a ripple effect all the way from the rack that they're installed into the power chain to utility, who's already struggling with providing additional power requirements for electric vehicles and reshoring. That’s one major change we’ve seen.

The second, it's on the thermal management side. These AI servers are drawing more power and they generate more heat. There are different types of cooling and the traditional air-cooled systems probably won't be adequate going forward. So, you’ll see a lot of discussions of liquid cooling that I personally think will need to be deployed soon, first for rapid deployment for AI.

Lastly is on the spending side of things. Goldman Sachs is estimating about $1 trillion being spent over the next couple of years on the whole AI ecosystems, for the power infrastructures to the data centers and across the spectrum. So, a lot of spending, there's a here upon us now, and it'll continue for at least the next four or five years.

What about within the channel? Are there specific areas where AI is having the most impact?

Tony: It is kind of a two-pronged impact. The first is that speed deployment is really outpacing knowledge. Traditionally, the end user had a specific amount of time to digest new trends coming his or her way, make any design improvements or changes and deploy it. That's not the case today. End users right now are being faced with quick deployment.

There's significant changes with these AI servers, with their physical size, the power, the thermal, so they're looking for help. They're looking for the channel to assist them more and at more system builds as well. We’re seeing a lot of different movement on that front.

Secondly, back to spending. We're seeing everyone has some form of AI in their budget. I don't think most of those are incrementally spent. So unfortunately, that means that these companies are taking a little away from their traditional IT spend and moving it to an AI spend. With that being said, the cost of these AI servers, they can't really deploy them on prem. So, some of that money may be shifting from on-prem IT traditional spend up to the cloud. There’s a couple different things that we see, starting to take place today.

Eaton has a reputation for innovation. Can you tell us about Eaton’s approach to integrating AI into your products and solutions?

Tony: These AI servers have had a huge impact on our roadmaps and our product portfolio. We've had to go back and kind of redesign our racks which we have a new rack offering coming out this month, as well as our power distribution units to distribute this increased power within the racks as well as a busway within the data center, the medium voltage switchgear, and the utility low voltage across the entire power chain.

AI has had a huge impact on our portfolio. So not just on the power side, but also our connectivity side as well as additional bandwidth is required. So, it's been a huge impact on our products.

It sounds like these innovations are really making a difference. How do they give Eaton a competitive edge in the market? How can partners get started with Eaton?

Tony: One of the main strengths of Eaton is our deep resources which we're able to call upon when needed when the market shifts as quickly as it has with AI. I think everyone saw AI coming, we knew it was going to come, but we had no clue in terms of the timing. It caught everyone by surprise, but I think that's again one of the strengths of Eaton. We’re able to call upon our deep resources, we’re able to act quickly within terms of our product roadmaps and delivering products that meet the customer’s needs.

If partners want to do get involved with Eaton, another major strength of ours is the PowerAdvantage Partner Program. Through the program, partners can gain access to deal registration and the rewards, it's quite easy to gain access and it’s another advantage of Eaton.

For more information on Eaton and their PowerAdvantage Partner Program, visit PowerAdvantage.Eaton.com/CRN.