KULR Just Locked In A Seat At The Most Important Table In AI Race
- Checkers
- Dec 15
- 4 min read
The AI infrastructure buildout has officially become a power problem, and KULR Technology Group (NYSE American: $KULR) just secured a Platinum seat in the Open Compute Project. OCP is the hyperscaler-led consortium where companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft draft the hardware blueprints that define data center architecture. KULR now has direct input into the rack-level power standards that many major buildouts will follow, moving from component supplier to a company with its hands on the specs themselves.
The entire semiconductor narrative has been fixated on GPU scarcity while a more immediate crisis builds in the background. The power grid cannot keep up. AI server racks are jumping from standard 10kW densities to over 100kW per cabinet, and the International Energy Agency projects global data center electricity demand could double by 2026. Texas offers the clearest picture of how severe this has become: ERCOT reported that large-load interconnection requests have hit 230 gigawatts this year, nearly four times the 63 gigawatts on the books at the end of 2024 (and more than double the total generation capacity the state currently has). The kicker? More than 70% of these requests are coming from data centers.
The capital flowing into AI power infrastructure already proves this is where big money is going: Schneider Electric closed $2.3 billion in U.S. data center deals specifically targeting the power and cooling bottleneck; Eaton followed with a $9.5 billion acquisition of Boyd Thermal to expand its thermal management capabilities; and Vertiv (NYSE: $VRT), already struggling to keep up with demand, acquired CoolTera to build out liquid cooling capacity. These are established industrial giants racing to capture share in a sector pulling in money at a pace that rivals the chip buildout itself.
The reason for this spending spree comes down to how violently the new 100kW systems behave. Next-generation AI clusters generate massive transient power spikes that traditional room-level UPS systems cannot handle. Even a millisecond voltage dip can crash a calculation and burn hours of compute time. The solution being adopted industry-wide is moving energy storage directly inside the rack, inches from the GPUs. This shift transforms the Battery Backup Unit from a passive commodity into high-voltage infrastructure that must manage extreme thermal loads while sitting next to millions of dollars in hardware.
The Open Compute Project is standardizing this transition through its Open Rack Version 3 specification. ORV3 defines the architecture for rack-level BBUs with requirements for localized energy storage, fast transient response, continuous telemetry, and strict thermal-propagation control. By joining as a Platinum Member, KULR gets early access and direct input on the spec process, meaning its product roadmap can track the same ORV3 requirements hyperscalers are standardizing around.
KULR meets these demands with technology forged in environments where failure is not an option. The company's work in space-grade battery safety and carbon-fiber thermal management came out of NASA programs where a single cell failure could end a mission. ORV3 demands the same kind of zero-propagation architecture, systems that prevent thermal runaway from cascading through a rack of GPUs. KULR is already pointing product at that framework, describing KULR ONE MAX as an ORV3-based reference design built around safety-by-design. The platform brings aerospace-grade safety into the data center, and the legacy designs were built for big battery strings in dedicated rooms, not compact rack units designed for tight thermal control. The company expects UL 9540 certification and production readiness in 2026, which sets a clear milestone and a near-term timeline if execution stays on track.
The Platinum membership with OCP has moved KULR from a mere participant in the AI buildout to a driver directly in the critical path. While the broader dialogue remains fixated on chip scarcity, the real bottleneck has shifted to keeping those chips powered without compromising safety, a reality that leaves many legacy providers scrambling to catch up. KULR has effectively cornered the intersection of extreme thermal regulation and high-density energy storage, positioning itself as a fundamental architectural component rather than just another supplier. With the KULR ONE MAX platform advancing toward production just as global data center demand prepares to double, the company has aligned its transition from niche aerospace engineering to mass-market industrial scale at the exact moment the industry needs it most.
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