New Eaton team to address white space growth
Jun 2, 2025
By Adam Vannieuwenhoven, Eaton Product Line Manager, White Space Applications
As AI advancements continue to transform infrastructure requirements across the IT landscape, these new technologies are constantly demanding more, from increased compute, storage and power to faster communication and appropriate software integration. Not only has the average power density more than doubled over the past two years ― with a typical AI data center consuming anywhere from two to 500 times more power than a cloud or enterprise facility ― but the massive growth trend is expected to continue. In fact, by 2028, U.S. data center capacity is projected to expand by four to six times, according to a report from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
To achieve peak performance, a successful data center design balances the needs for reliability, efficiency and safety with critical objectives like lower total cost of ownership.
Eaton’s new team, white space-focused
One of the most dramatic infrastructure shifts is occurring in the data center white space, the area responsible for housing IT equipment such as servers, storage and network gear. In an effort to better meet the changing market demands driven by AI’s immense computational requirements and unique workload characteristics, Eaton has created a team dedicated exclusively to white space applications. This new group is focused on expanding Eaton’s product portfolio, enhancing strategic partnerships, and making the investments that will best position our channel partners to grow their business in the white space.
A broad, robust product portfolio is necessary to meet the increased power and capacity requirements for this segment. While Eaton already offers numerous core products that are ideal for these applications, our white space team is actively working to expand other areas.
For example, because greater capacity GPUs generate significant heat, most traditional cooling solutions are insufficient for high-density AI deployments. For this reason, we’re seeing increased adoption of advanced cooling systems and liquid cooling technologies in white space applications, and Eaton is currently evaluating numerous options to enhance our existing cooling portfolio.
Power up: meeting AI’s energy demands
Another change to the white space has been increasing power densities. Since AI servers consume significantly more power than traditional servers, data centers must now be able to support power densities of 20–50 kW per rack or higher, compared to traditional 5–10 kW racks. As a result, the white space infrastructure now requires unique power distribution solutions such as busway, rack PDUs, rack automatic transfer switches, copper and fiber cables, cable management, and denser rack enclosures configurated for optimized power and airflow and spacing considerations ― areas where Eaton already has a solid offering. Meanwhile, we will be looking to expand our existing line of console servers, KVM switches, software, network switches and network connectivity to better support AI training and inference tasks that require high bandwidth and low latency interconnects.
The increase in power consumption is also spurring growth in open compute and DC power applications, areas where Eaton has strong, established research and backing, as well as partnerships with some of the industry’s leaders. Customers will also be increasingly seeking end-of-row three-phase UPS systems like the Eaton 93PM UPS family and the new Eaton 93PX UPS, the BladeUPS replacement expected in early August.
From gray to white: Eaton’s next move
As AI continues to impact IT requirements, you can be confident that Eaton is leveraging our resources and strong presence in the gray space to optimize and expand our white space product portfolio. The new dedicated team is part of our ongoing pledge to support partners, optimize product lines and help you capitalize on new market opportunities. Learn more about how Eaton can help you meet your customers’ white space requirements.