AI is reshaping how businesses work, but often data centres, edge environmental and colocation contracts aren’t ready – which presents opportunities for resellers, says Martin Ryder, channel sales director, Northern Europe at Vertiv.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a technology talking point for the future. It’s a present-day pressure bearing down on infrastructure – fast, uneven and with consequences that few businesses are fully prepared for. For the channel, this shift opens a new set of risks and opportunities because customers are rolling out AI at pace. But it’s often the case that their data centres, edge environments and colocation contracts are not ready. This is where channel partners can step in with authority.
AI doesn’t behave like traditional workloads. It concentrates heat in ways that stretch thermal management solutions to their limits and introduces unpredictable electrical profiles and radically compresses deployment timelines. Standard build and procurement cycles can’t keep up with what’s being asked of them.
Across the industry rack densities are climbing sharply – into 30kW, 40kW and beyond – which introduces immediate physical and electrical considerations. These racks aren’t only power-hungry, they are materially different in weight, layout and integration requirements. Floor loading becomes a real concern and so does lateral airflow. Even rack selection itself becomes a decision with long-term cooling implications.
Many legacy data halls simply weren’t designed for AI workloads. Retrofitting solutions, whether it’s adding liquid cooling lines, increasing airflow, or uprating uninterruptible power supply (UPS) capacity, often ends up being more complex and riskier than customers anticipate.
Reframing infrastructure conversations
This is the point at which the channel must bring clarity. It’s not just about providing the next piece of hardware. It’s about helping customers reframe how they think about critical infrastructure altogether. High-density AI deployments require joined-up decision-making across power, cooling, space and software. And while most businesses understand AI is coming, few have a roadmap for making their physical estate ready for it.
Partners that can offer end-to-end planning support – whether through consultancy, system integration or OEM collaboration – will gain trust, long-term margin and customer loyalty. This applies across on-prem, colocation and hybrid environments. At Vertiv, we’re working with channel partners to equip them with the knowledge and tools to guide customers through this complexity, and we’re seeing increasing appetite for co-designed modular systems that can be deployed at speed without sacrificing resilience.
More speed
One of the most consistent pain points is the speed mismatch between AI cycles and data centre development timelines. AI product and feature cycles move quarterly, yet infrastructure builds can take 12 to 18 months or more. For enterprise customers, especially those trialling AI models or seeking to scale inference workloads, that’s untenable.
In response, a growing number of businesses are looking to the channel for alternatives that can be online faster: prefabricated modular units, tightly integrated systems like Vertiv™ PowerNexus and scalable cooling options that can flex with workload demand. These solutions reduce site dependencies, cut down on contractor coordination and allow customers to reclaim valuable time in deployment. Crucially, they also open the door for service and support contracts that sit beyond the initial sale. This is an important shift for channel partners moving to recurring revenue models.
Tighter integration
But power and cooling aren’t the only factors changing. AI infrastructure needs tighter integration between software management and physical systems. Visibility, automation and remote operation are becoming vital. Monitoring platforms need to track not only temperature and voltage but usage patterns, thermal hotspots and system interactions. Maintenance windows are shrinking, redundancy strategies are evolving, AI workloads introduce different thresholds for risk and resilience – and infrastructure needs to match those parameters.
Channel partners that understand how to deliver that visibility through integrated data centre infrastructure management systems, telemetry-enhanced UPS platforms or unified infrastructure management dashboards, will be able to build strategic customer relationships and trusted partnerships, not just supply chains.
And as power consumption rises, energy strategy is being pulled into the equation in new ways. Many enterprises are beginning to look at how infrastructure can support decarbonisation goals, participate in grid programmes, or unlock value from idle UPS capacity. These are now part of long-term investment planning. Operators and customers alike are thinking about future energy price volatility, ESG pressures and grid constraints. Channel partners that can surface those discussions and offer real solutions such as grid-balancing UPS systems or modular energy storage, will be able to differentiate themselves quickly.
Ultimately, AI is changing what infrastructure means. It’s faster, hotter, denser and more business-critical than previous workloads. The channel has a major role to play in making sure customers are ready, and in shaping a more flexible, service-led future that meets these challenges head on.
