SolidUltra secures €3m to develop 800VDC power technology
Author: Joe Peck
SolidUltra, a new European developer of modular solid-state transformers (SSTs) for AI data centres, has secured €3 million (£2.5 million) in funding from founding partner Watt & Well, a French power electronics group.
The funding was secured within three months of SolidUltra’s incorporation in June and will reportedly support technology development and industrialisation.
The company is developing a medium-voltage SST designed to connect the electricity grid directly to 800VDC distribution systems in a single conversion stage. The technology targets the power requirements of next-generation AI data centres, where GPU racks are moving towards megawatt-scale consumption.
Developing power conversion for AI infrastructure
SolidUltra says conventional data centre power architectures rely on a low-frequency transformer followed by several conversion stages. As GPU power density increases, this can add to energy losses, cooling requirements, equipment footprint, and deployment times.
Its SST is targeting 98.5% efficiency, with the company claiming it could reduce power losses by a factor of three and equipment footprint by a factor of four compared with conventional architectures. It also aims to reduce the carbon footprint of power-conversion infrastructure by up to 10 times and total cost of ownership by around 30%.
The modular design is intended to scale from hundreds of kilowatts to 10MW and beyond. Field-replaceable power modules, which the company says can be swapped in under 15 minutes, are designed to support 99.999% availability.
The development roadmap is aligned with the industry’s move towards 800VDC architectures, including NVIDIA’s plans for future AI data centres. SolidUltra is targeting a commercial launch in 2028, with the funding supporting engineering, industrialisation, and initial customer engagement.
Raul Iglesias, CEO of SolidUltra, comments, “AI is not only changing computing; it is fundamentally changing the electrical infrastructure required to power it. With rack power moving towards the megawatt scale, the industry needs to rethink the way electricity is converted and distributed inside data centres.
“We created SolidUltra to address that transition with a solution designed from the outset for the 800VDC era, backed by Watt & Well’s industrial base. Securing €3 million only three months after our creation gives us the means to move rapidly towards industrial deployment.”
Production targets for 2032
SolidUltra aims to deliver 10,000 modular SST systems by 2032, representing approximately 1GW of installed power. Its founding partner, Watt & Well, brings existing power electronics manufacturing capabilities to the development programme.
Romain Beaume, CBO at SolidUltra, says, “Today, data centre operators can wait years to get power to new AI capacity; we want to deliver it in weeks, with lower losses and a footprint four times smaller. Our ambition is to build a European industrial player capable of serving the market on a global scale.”
