About Vertiv
In an increasingly digital world, reliable critical infrastructure is fundamental to business operations. As a global leader in this field, Vertiv provides the hardware, software, analytics and services that support continuous operation, performance, and scalable growth for critical applications.
Headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, with a history dating back to 1946 (formerly as Emerson Network Power), Vertiv has established business operations in more than 130 countries. The company reported fiscal year 2025 revenue of roughly $10.3 billion, driven by its pivotal role in supporting data centers, communication networks, and commercial and industrial environments.
Vertiv’s portfolio spans power, thermal management, and IT infrastructure solutions. Central to its power innovation efforts is the Bologna Power Customer Experience Center in Italy, serving both as a hub for customer engagement and as the base for the research and development team for large power converters. This facility serves as a center for the development of large power Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems, such as the Vertiv™Trinergy™ and Vertiv™ PowerUPS 9000 power converters which are capable of handling power loads from 500 kW up to 2.5 MW in a single module. These systems power the world’s largest data centers and industrial facilities where power continuity is mandatory.
Vertiv’s Bologna team has been actively engaged in addressing one of the most significant shifts in data center infrastructure: the rise of Artificial Intelligence. The transition of data centers to accommodate AI workloads has necessitated the development of more sophisticated power protection solutions that can withstand the fluctuating energy demands of AI applications while maintaining high energy efficiency standards.
The Challenge
Background
The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence has fundamentally altered the electrical landscape within data centers. Traditionally, data centers supported web hosting, storage, and communication traffic - workloads that resulted in relatively stable electrical loads. Power variations were typically slow and predictable, allowing infrastructure to operate in a steady state.
However, modern AI training and inference algorithms generate what engineers call “pulsed loads.” AI processors often switch between idle and full load almost instantaneously. This behavior causes power demand to swing from 0% to 100% and back in milliseconds, creating an erratic “on-off” cycle with extremely fast rise and fall times.
For power infrastructure, these rapid fluctuations create severe stress. The UPS must now also function as a dynamic power conditioner capable of reacting to these variable load swings in real time. If the UPS cannot manage these pulses effectively, they can be reflected back to the grid or the site’s backup generators, threatening the stability of the whole system.
The challenge
This shift creates an important opportunity for Vertiv’s Research & Development team to further strengthen UPS performance and reliability.
The primary risk occurs during a blackout when the facility runs on backup diesel generators. Unlike the electrical grid, a diesel generator is a mechanical machine with a rotating mass. If the UPS reflects massive, high frequency power pulses back to the source, they can resonate with the generator’s mechanical rotation, potentially causing instability or even breakdown.
To prevent this, Vertiv engineers needed to validate new Input Power Smoothing algorithms that intelligently draw energy from the UPS batteries during peak pulses, shielding the upstream generator from the erratic behavior of an AI load.
Validating this solution is complex. The Vertiv™ Trinergy™ units feature a sophisticated topology with three inputs: two AC three-phase mains and one DC battery input, and one three-phase output. The R&D team faced the challenge of monitoring all these inputs and outputs simultaneously.
They required an instrumentation solution that could capture long-duration historical data for thermal tracking, while also offering the high-speed resolution necessary to analyze waveform deformation, noise, and Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) during these rapid switching events.
The Solution
Application requirements
Inverters designed for modern data centers and AI applications face a punishing set of performance criteria. Vertiv’s Trinergy systems must deliver high energy efficiency and minimum harmonic distortion while maintaining a fast dynamic response to cope with the nonlinear loads typical of AI architectures.
To validate these capabilities, the Vertiv Power Center in Bologna requires a testing architecture capable of handling simultaneous, multi-domain analysis. Engineers need to measure broadband currents and voltages to analyze switching losses and waveform behavior. Beyond efficiency, the instrumentation must characterize active, reactive, and apparent power, to fully understand power quality under stress.
The physical scale of equipment adds further complexity. Testing 2.5 MW units requires handling currents up to 5000 A safely. This demands a setup that ensures isolation and high linearity to maintain safety without sacrificing measurement. Furthermore, the complex topology requires a high channel count - often exceeding 16 channels - to visualize the entire system state.
Finally, the setup must be comprehensive to ensure 24/7 reliability, capable of capturing intermittent anomalies while logging long-term thermal stability.
Measurement solution
Vertiv’s chosen solution for the development of a UPS system for data center applications is a fully integrated measurement ecosystem from Yokogawa, anchored by the WT5000 Precision Power Analyzer, DL950 ScopeCorder, and tied together by the IS8000 software platform.
For primary power analysis, Vertiv employs the WT5000 Precision Power Analyzer. With a power accuracy class of 0.03% and support for up to 7 input modules, it allows Vertiv engineers to measure AC and DC power simultaneously. The instrument provides harmonic analysis up to the 500th order, essential for evaluating power quality and validating efficiency even under dynamic load conditions.
To capture the transient behavior of the “pulsed loads”, Vertiv uses the DL950 ScopeCorder. Configured with 16 channels, the DL950 combines the benefits of a high-speed oscilloscope with a long-term data recorder. It captures the specific shape of voltage and current waveforms during rapid switching events, allowing engineers to identify high-frequency noise and verify the system’s dynamic response time without missing critical details.
Connecting these domains is Yokogawa’s IS8000 software, which synchronizes the instruments using the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). This platform integrates data from the WT5000, the DL950, and the GM10 Data Acquisition System, which monitors thermal points across the system. This setup creates a single, time-aligned dataset where thermal stress, power efficiency, and waveform distortion can be viewed side-by-side.
“The Yokogawa ecosystem is the best solution for us because it allows us to see so many different variables - voltage, currents, DC and AC - at the same time on a single display, and coherent in time.” says Luigi Balma of the Vertiv R&D team.
Results
WT5000 and DL950: Integrated precision validates Vertiv’s technology for AI-driven data centers
The deployment of the Yokogawa measurement ecosystem has delivered decisive results for Vertiv, directly enabling the validation of their patented Input Power Smoothing technology. Vertiv engineers were able to visualize exactly how their algorithms managed the transition between grid power and battery power during millisecond-level load spikes. This granular insight confirmed that the Vertiv™ Trinergy™ UPS could successfully shield backup generators from dangerous resonance, a key differentiator in the AI data center market.
In the competitive landscape of critical infrastructure, efficiency is one of the most important metric for customers. The adoption of the WT5000 has provided Vertiv with a measurement standard that is recognized and trusted globally.
“Reliability is one of the most important data points for our customers, so the accuracy of that measurement is vital for us. Today, we trust only Yokogawa to provide that level of accuracy and reliability.
Francesco Centritti, Test Engineering Team Manager, Vertiv
Beyond the immediate technical advantages, the integrated solution has transformed the workflow in the Bologna laboratory. The ability to view thermal, electrical, and waveform data on a single IS8000 interface has significantly reduced testing complexity and debugging time. This confidence in their data enabled by Yokogawa, allows Vertiv to continue pushing the boundaries of power density.
As a result, Vertiv supports the development of next generation of data centers, focusing on flexibility and reliability, with Yokogawa’s precision validating each innovation to meet the evolving demands of digital intelligence.
