Amazon Web Services (AWS) is exploring pre-fabricated modular data centers to help speed up construction timelines.

According to Business Insider, citing internal documents accessed by the publication, an initiative dubbed "Project Houdini" is aiming to move a significant portion of the construction process inside the factory with the aim of bringing capacity online faster.

BI reports that the initiative is aiming to reduce delivery time by "months" and the company is exploring solutions to take "various DC build scopes to a factory setting."

"Our innovations in data center construction enable us to deliver AI infrastructure faster and at lower cost, which is why customers turn to AWS to run their most demanding workloads," an AWS spokesperson told BI.

The documents note that the current data hall build system is "stick-built" on-site, with workers installing racks, wiring power systems, and cabling, and that it can take up to 15 weeks before servers can be installed.

The Houdini effort will see large sections of the data halls prebuilt and known as "skids," delivered with racks, power, cabling, lighting, and fire and security systems already installed.

Each module is around 45 feet long and is shipped on double drop trailers, where it can be dropped into place and connected. The documents state that servers can, when using this method, instead be installed in just two or three weeks from construction starting. The initiative is expected to be ready by August and could eventually be used for the development of more than 100 data centers annually.

AWS is working with Cupertino Electric Inc on the initiative, and initial module production is planned in Topeka, Kansas; Houston, Texas; and Salt Lake City, Utah.

While modular data centers have long been around, they are typically used in smaller deployments - sometimes with multiple modules on one site, or as an Edge data center facility.

The solution is, however, starting to see a hyperscale - and AI infrastructure - shift. Earlier this year, data center company Crusoe revealed it was establishing a modular offering dubbed "Crusoe Spark" that would be manufactured in its Spark Factory in Brighton, Colorado. According to the company, the Spark units will be fully assembled and cover the entire AI stack, including cloud orchestration, and offering the full Crusoe Cloud platform and Managed Inference services, and can be brought online in just three months