Executive Summary

• Mike Golding, SVP Design & Build of VIRTUS data centres, explores why transformer strategy will define the next generation of AI data centres.
• By connecting directly to the highest levels of the electricity transmission network and using large-scale grid transformers, operators can reduce transformation stages, improve efficiency and create significantly more resilient electrical architectures.
• As data centres continue to evolve into critical national infrastructure, the industry’s future will depend on how intelligently electricity is delivered, managed, and transformed.

For decades, transformers have been viewed as essential but largely unremarkable components within electrical infrastructure. Their purpose was to convert electricity efficiently between voltage levels and ensure reliable delivery throughout a facility. Today, that perception is changing.

As hyperscale campuses grow beyond 300MW and AI workloads continue to push power densities to new extremes, transformer architecture has become a strategic differentiator. The way operators connect to the electricity network, distribute power across campus and integrate renewable energy will increasingly determine who can build, scale and operate the next generation of digital infrastructure.

AI is reshaping power infrastructure

Conventional approaches that rely on multiple stages of voltage transformation and traditional distribution architectures introduce inefficiencies that become increasingly significant when multiplied across the hundreds of megawatts that AI workloads demand. Every conversion stage generates losses, every inefficiency creates additional heat, and every watt lost ultimately increases cooling requirements, operating costs and carbon emissions.

As facilities scale, these seemingly small inefficiencies become commercially significant. The challenge is no longer simply supplying more power. It is delivering that power with greater efficiency, resilience and flexibility while supporting increasingly ambitious sustainability targets.

Why transformer architecture matters more than ever

Transformers operate using the principle of electromagnetic induction, transferring electrical energy between circuits while changing voltage levels. Although the technology has existed for nearly two centuries, its role within modern digital infrastructure has never been more important.

Electricity can be transmitted far more efficiently at higher voltages because reducing current dramatically lowers transmission losses. This principle becomes especially valuable when delivering hundreds of megawatts to large-scale campuses.

Traditional data centres often connect through regional distribution networks before power passes through several transformation stages to reach equipment inside the facility. A transmission-level connection changes that model entirely.

By connecting directly to the highest levels of the electricity transmission network and using large-scale grid transformers, operators can reduce transformation stages, improve efficiency and create significantly more resilient electrical architectures. These benefits extend throughout the facility.

More efficient electrical systems reduce waste heat, allowing cooling infrastructure to operate more effectively. Lower losses also reduce overall energy consumption, improving both operational expenditure and environmental performance over the lifetime of the campus.

Building infrastructure for AI at unprecedented scale

The evolution of transformer strategy is perhaps best illustrated by the latest generation of hyperscale developments.

VIRTUS Data Centres’ Wustermark Campus, located west of Berlin, demonstrates how electrical infrastructure is evolving to meet AI-era requirements. The campus has been designed around two 185MVA super-grid transformers connected directly to Germany’s 380kV transmission network, creating one of Europe’s highest-capacity data centre power connections. Launching with 300MW of connected capacity and designed to scale further, the campus reflects a new philosophy in infrastructure planning. Rather than treating electrical systems as supporting infrastructure, they become the foundation upon which long-term growth is built.

Direct transmission-level connectivity provides access to substantial grid capacity while reducing reliance on lower-voltage regional distribution networks. This not only improves operational resilience but also avoids placing additional pressure on local electricity infrastructure serving surrounding communities and businesses.

As governments compete to attract AI investment, this approach offers an important blueprint for balancing digital growth with wider energy system stability.

Sustainability begins with electrical efficiency

Power is already one of the largest operating costs for any data centre, and that proportion will only increase as AI adoption accelerates. Improving transformer efficiency may appear marginal in percentage terms, but across hundreds of megawatts

those gains become substantial. Reduced electrical losses lower energy consumption throughout the campus while decreasing cooling demand and associated water usage.

The environmental benefits extend further. Transmission-level infrastructure is well suited to integrating renewable energy sources, battery energy storage systems and future grid technologies. As operators seek to meet ambitious decarbonisation targets, electrical architecture will play a central role in enabling cleaner power without compromising reliability.

The data centre is becoming an energy platform

Perhaps the most significant shift underway is the changing role of the data centre itself. Historically, facilities have been passive consumers of electricity. Increasingly, they are evolving into active participants within the wider energy ecosystem.

Long-term renewable power purchase agreements, battery storage, on-site energy generation and sophisticated grid interaction are becoming integral components of campus strategy. Transformers provide the critical interface that allows these diverse energy sources to operate together safely and efficiently.

Rather than simply distributing electricity, future electrical infrastructure will manage multiple power flows, balance renewable generation and support increasingly dynamic grid environments. In this context, transformer technology becomes far more than a utility asset. It becomes an enabler of energy resilience, sustainability and long-term business growth.

Power strategy will define competitive advantage

The AI revolution is often portrayed as a contest driven by semiconductor innovation and computing performance. While these remain vital, access to reliable, scalable and sustainable power is rapidly becoming the industry’s defining constraint.

Operators that can secure transmission-level connectivity, optimise electrical efficiency and integrate renewable energy at scale will be better positioned to expand capacity, reduce operating costs and meet increasingly demanding sustainability expectations.

Transformer architecture sits at the centre of that equation.

As data centres continue their evolution into critical national infrastructure, the industry’s future will depend not only on processing power, but on how intelligently electricity is delivered, managed and transformed.

The facilities that lead the next generation of AI will not simply be those with the fastest processors or the highest rack densities. They will be those built on electrical infrastructure capable of supporting decades of growth.

In that future, transformers will no longer be viewed as hidden components inside substations. They will be recognised as one of the fundamental technologies enabling the digital economy itself.