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A modular approach to data center design and construction could help overcome bottlenecks such as labor availability, land limitations and long lead times for electrical and electrical equipment while increasing performance once operational, an executive at data center solutions provider Flex told Facilities Dive last week.
Chris Butler, president of Flex’s critical and integrated power business, said the company’s modular approach is gaining traction among data center developers after decades of use in other critical industries such as wastewater treatment and fossil energy extraction.
Flex says modularity can reduce the need for on-site testing and cabling by 70% while cutting data center project timelines. in 30% overall. Building more components in controlled factory environments allows long-term equipment acquisition earlier in the development process, ensures more consistent equipment performance and reduces worker safety risks, according to the company.
Sixty percent of data center projects slated to come online in 2027 have yet to begin construction, raising questions about whether they will meet announced timelines, according to JP Morgan analysts he said last month.
Multiple forces are lining up to slow data center development in parts of the United States. Ongoing problems such as the tight supply of power generation equipment and electrical transformers, competition for suitable sites, and a limited pool of skilled and commercial labor have been exacerbated by the growing public push for large-scale IT facilities. At least 20 projects representing nearly $42 billion in investment were canceled in the first quarter of 2026 due in part to permitting challenges, it said. data collected by heat map.
Butler said similar challenges have vexed European data center developers and end users for years, particularly the continent’s relatively high labor costs, made worse by national regulations that limit cross-border labor portability. Strict building codes increase pressure on construction costs and timelines, he said.
In response, the European IT industry began shifting to modular solutions a few years ago, Butler said. US data center developers and tenants are now following suit.
“It’s becoming a de facto standard for any large-scale data center facility,” he said.
Flex initially gained traction in the data center market with a “powerhouse” architecture that sits outside of the data center’s concrete shell or inside the skid facility. Either placement increases flexibility in a fast-moving industry, where chips considered cutting-edge today may be obsolete. just two years — “because once you build a data center and put the [electrical] concrete conduit, you can’t change it,” Butler said. “Or you can, but it’s very expensive.”
It’s now common for not only electrical infrastructure, but also cooling hardware and IT equipment, to be located “outside” the data center in modular buildings that can be reconfigured or changed as needed, Butler said. Flex is working with chipmaking giant NVIDIA with the shared goal of creating “future-proof” designs compatible with the 800-volt DC power architecture that NVIDIA says will be needed to power next-generation server racks as early as next year, he said.
While market and media attention tends to focus on massive data centers running the “latest and greatest” graphics processing unit chips for AI model training sessions, perhaps 80 percent of computing facilities being built “for the foreseeable future” will be lower-powered designs running conventional central processing unit chips, Butler said.
If owners of these facilities want to upgrade to more powerful chips, “these racks are built modularly,” he added.
