Green technology firm Envision claims to have built the world’s first 800VDC data center in Ulanqab, China.

The company said the 800VDC power system is running live compute workloads at its Galaxy AI data center in Ulanqab, which is part of Inner Mongolia. The size of the system running at the data center, which opened in August, has not been revealed.

A traditional data center power setup takes alternating current (AC) from the grid, and runs it through a series of conversion processes, first to direct current (DC) for the site’s battery or UPS, then back to AC to get it to the IT racks, then to DC to directly supply the server and its components.

800VDC systems promise to reduce this to a single conversion, from AC to DC, when power reaches the data center, then run the DC directly to the racks. This is seen as a way of getting more power into the server hall to meet the needs of future generations of AI hardware, which are likely to require much larger amounts of power than are currently available in data centers.

Envision said its newly deployed system combines solid-state transformers (SST), battery energy storage (BESS), and equipment that adjusts direct-current voltage for computing hardware. It has developed a controller known as Dubhe, supported by its own foundation AI model, Dubhe Energy, that coordinates the transformers and batteries in real time to match power supply with computing demand and manage sudden load swings.

According to the company, the SST converts 10kV medium voltage AC from the grid to an 800VDC busbar, which serves the hardware. An Open Compute Project white paper on 800VDC, released earlier this year, proposed using a busbar, cables, or a mixture of the two to transmit power to the servers.

“AI data centers need power systems that coordinate renewable energy, energy storage, and the grid to meet computing demand,” said Kevin Huang, senior vice president of Envision Energy and president of energy storage and AIDC Power Systems.

“Our integrated 800VDC system is now powering live computing workloads, demonstrating an end-to-end architecture that connects renewable energy supply with computing demand. This is a critical step in turning power-compute coordination from a strategic vision into an operational reality.”

The Galaxy AI data center will span 120,000 sqm (1.2m sq ft) and has a planned capacity of 3GW, it is designed to support up to one million AI accelerators, though the type of hardware it is currently running has not been disclosed. According to Envision, the data center is powered by 80 percent renewable energy.

Envision was founded in 2007 as a wind turbine company. The company says that it has installed 100GW of wind turbines, with 20GW installed globally in 2025. It hopes to bring 5GW of ‘green’ data center capacity online by 2030 as part of its Mission Gobi initiative.

DCD is not aware of any other data centers in the world running an 800VDC power setup, though many companies are working on SSTs which are likely to come to market in the next year.

Microsoft and Meta have proposed, through the OCP, designs for the Mount Diablo rack, which comes with a power sidecar enabling 400VDC to reach its servers.

DCD took a deep dive into the world of 800VDC in the latest edition of our Magazine. Read it for free here.