The rapid rise of AI has brought about a fundamental paradigm shift for data centers. One result of this process has been a dramatic acceleration in the need for speed to market. As technology cycles come and go over increasingly shorter time frames, staying ahead of the changing curve is more critical than ever. Organizations must design and deploy future-ready solutions at pace.

“The most significant change is in how quickly you can work – and the volume,” explains Shahid Rahman, EMEA data center strategic account lead at Mitsubishi Electric. “It’s a more aggressive program being driven across the chain.”

As with any challenge, this pressing need for speed demands a selection of tools. Modularization has quickly emerged as a core aspect of the data center arsenal – delivering quicker build speeds, faster deployment and installation, plus built-in scalability.

In the face of growing supply chain constraints and power densities rising at breakneck speed, traditional construction methods and long build cycles that involve coordinating individual components simply won’t meet the mark in today’s fast-paced, high-stakes environment.

Underpinning these technological developments and construction innovations is people power. Working at the speeds required today without compromising on quality or long-term reliability requires the right partnerships and genuine collaborations to harmonize both speed and quality. Increasingly, being prepared ahead of the next wave of change – rather than racing to keep pace – demands alignment across the data center ecosystem.

Against this backdrop, Mitsubishi Electric is positioning itself as a key strategic partner, trusted advisor, and fully integrated one-stop shop for today’s data center needs. In a recent DCD>Talks episode, ‘Building strategic partnerships to scale faster,’ Rahman explores the key considerations in delivering demand for increased speed to market while prioritizing reliability, quality, and sustainability via end-to-end collaboration.

Many hands make light work

Getting up and running ahead of the curve with next-gen infrastructure is no use if that same setup can’t function effectively long-term or flex for future demand. Rahman explains how Mitsubishi Electric is helping its customers manage this critical balancing act:

“We’re making sure we have strong collaborations with the right people. We prioritize early engagement to deliver a comprehensive understanding of project timeframes. Having those contractual conversations up front, manufacturing slots booked in, and championing transparent communication sets a project off on the right track.”

Locking in this relationship from the outset not only helps manage both speed and quality along project paths, but enables suppliers to act as genuine partners and trusted advisors to lean on – rather than just passive providers.

At the heart of these technology cycles sit the people and partnerships that make them happen. And part of mitigating risk along rapid deployment schedules means prioritizing the best people both inside organizations and across key collaborators.

“When I speak to our customers to understand their pain points and challenges, sometimes communication can fall by the wayside over time,” says Rahman. “So, it’s about having the right people in the right places with the necessary skillsets and passing the baton from department to department to make that collaboration work both ways.

“If we don’t listen to the customer, we can’t provide what they’re asking for. And sometimes it’s that simple.”

The ability to first listen to customer requirements, understand them, and then respond under the pressure of accelerated deployment is increasingly challenging but equally mission-critical. Crucially, a balance must be struck. Finding that balance and making genuine steps forward takes the right people.

Future-ready, today

“Looking at the AI power clusters, we’ve quickly moved from around 20kW to 50 and 100kW racks with higher water temperatures,” says Rahman. “So it’s really quite aggressive in terms of how the market is working, and we need to bypass some of those construction cycles to make it easier and quicker to build at scale.”

He stresses that genuine future-proofing can only be achieved via accelerated time to market. Stagnant, piece-by-piece construction processes risk delivering solutions that are already out of date once they hit the data center floor – unable to handle current power and cooling demands or adapt to increases further down the line.

Today, nothing exists in isolation. Efforts to speed up must also be undertaken alongside efforts to build, deploy, and operate more sustainably. Making sustainability a top priority is central to keeping up with the current growth trajectory of the industry, and ensuring facilities develop into responsible partners within the environments and communities they inhabit over the long run.

“Sustainability isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore,” states Rahman. “It’s something that requires examining questions in-depth. Increasingly, we’re talking about embodied carbon. What are your manufacturing facilities doing in terms of embodied carbon and heat reuse? It’s a really big question.”

The other part of the equation is how to service and manage next-gen equipment beyond install. It’s no longer enough for suppliers to sign off at the point of delivery. Maintaining equipment via dedicated support is also key to ensuring scalability, reliability, and the long-term sustainability of operations.

New build vs retrofit

The industry is scaling on all fronts, yet the tools for developing new build versus retrofit projects quickly and effectively must be critically distinguished. When it comes to new builds, what are the key design or technology considerations that operators should be prioritizing?

For Rahman, it’s an opportunity to implement the most efficient solutions possible – maximizing speed and sustainability in tandem: “For new facilities, we’re likely talking about high-capacity, high-density compute. From a high-level perspective, we have dedicated divisions focusing on each key element.

“For instance, Mitsubishi Electric Hydronics IT Cooling focuses on HVAC elements and looks at finding innovative solutions – such as inverter compressor technology or turbo-cooled compressor technology – and integrating things like free cooling and heat reuse.”

The opportunities for driving efficiency and sustainability are extensive in new projects built from the ground up. When it comes to upgrading existing facilities, Mitsubishi Electric’s approach is to divide and conquer via its internal structure and dedicated teams.

“We’ve got dedicated teams at local levels and in our factories to support and understand customer pain points and main drivers. Is it about delivering the most kilowatts? How available is the particular machine they’re after? What is the energy driver? There’s a multifaceted approach, but we have internal teams to support along the way, and it all comes down to early design conversations.”

A key driver behind the decision to build from scratch or retrofit is power availability. That determines capacity and cooling at a basic level, along with setting up the right visual intelligence, or building management system (BMS).

“There are a lot of customer challenges we come across, and a key one is operators wanting in-depth information very quickly,” explains Rahman. “That means making sure we can deliver the correct analysis and the right design in an efficient and effective manner.”

At the front-end, the main challenge is servicing customers with the right information and the right level of detail. The back end is about project delivery – making sure the right people are on site to receive deliveries, support projects, and hit timeframes and delivery schedules.

Lasting collaboration

For Rahman, the key to unlocking rapid scalability and deployment comes back to collaboration: “It’s about having those face-to-face conversations, meeting the right people, having the right stakeholders around the table, and understanding one another.”

This mentality, combined with its vertically integrated structure, is how Mitsubishi Electric is positioning itself as more than just a provider of products, but as a long-term partner intrinsic to the project path and aligned with the business goals of its customers.

Establishing a shared vision from the very outset of a project is now central to striking the right balance between efficiency and long-lasting resilience.

To hear more about delivering accelerated speed to market in today’s landscape, watch the full DCD>Talks episode, here