Digital Realty has opened an AI infrastructure testing lab in Vinhedo, São Paulo state, giving customers a place to check multi-vendor systems before larger deployments. It is the company’s first Digital Realty Innovation Lab in Latin America.
The facility is designed to assess liquid-cooled racks at cabinet densities of 150 kilowatts or more. Its setup includes chilled-water cooling, liquid-to-liquid and air-to-liquid configurations, parallel uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and two fiber-entry paths. Customers can use the site to evaluate how components perform together before scaling their systems, Digital Realty said.
Ascenty’s announcement lists Nokia network automation, OpenGlobe open networking, Oracle’s AI Customer Excellence Center and Keraunos AI infrastructure among the partner technologies available for testing. Cooling equipment comes from Schneider Electric and Delta. Nokia said network limits can prevent organizations from fully using graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure, with some issues becoming apparent only when the complete system is operating.
Claude Brown, Digital Realty’s senior vice president of American sales, said rapid AI infrastructure development is making it harder to ensure components from different vendors work together. Digital Realty says testing before deployment can help customers make decisions about scalability, resilience and total cost of ownership.
Abranet reported that the project involved $4 million (R$20 million), with contributions from Ascenty and its partners. The outlet did not specify how much each party supplied. Digital Realty’s release did not state a project cost.
The Vinhedo lab joins Digital Realty’s existing facilities in Northern Virginia, Tokyo and London. Abranet reported that Marcos Siqueira, Ascenty’s executive vice president and strategy lead, said the company would assess whether to replicate the model in Brazil, Chile or Mexico based on the project’s results. No timetable was given for that assessment.
