Croatian electric vehicle technology company Rimac Technology and Dubai-based AI infrastructure provider Ecoblox have agreed to jointly develop modular data centres using Rimac's battery and power electronics technology, the companies said on October 7.

The partnership aims to combine Rimac's high-density power systems with Ecoblox's modular data centre architecture as demand for computing capacity from artificial intelligence increases.

The companies said their modular data centre will integrate Rimac's UNI battery modules, battery management system, power conversion and uninterruptible power supply technology with Ecoblox's cooling, IT infrastructure and data centre management systems.

The battery management system will feed operational data into Ecoblox's infrastructure management platform, allowing monitoring, alarms and analytics to be managed centrally, they said.

“Our battery and power electronics technologies have been developed and industrialised to meet some of the most demanding requirements in the automotive industry,” Rimac Technology chief executive Nurdin Pitarević said.

“The same capabilities are increasingly relevant to high-power AI infrastructure, where power density, thermal management, safety and reliability are critical,” he added.

Ecoblox chief executive Doug Makishima said the partnership would help address power constraints facing AI infrastructure.

“By integrating automotive-grade energy storage and power electronics directly into our modular data centre architecture, we are removing grid constraints and enabling cloud providers and enterprise customers to deploy scalable, power-resilient AI clusters faster and more efficiently than ever before,” he said.

The first jointly developed modular data centre is scheduled to be installed at Rimac's campus near Zagreb in November, where it will operate as a demonstration site for potential customers and partners.

Rimac Technology, part of Croatia's Rimac Group, employs more than 1,000 people and supplies electrification, battery and electronic systems to the automotive industry.

Ecoblox, headquartered in Dubai, provides modular data centres and AI computing infrastructure and is an NVIDIA Preferred Partner. The companies said the systems are being developed for high-density computing using 400-volt and 800-volt direct-current architectures.