Increasing Data Centers’ Efficiency With Better Power Conversion Chips

With the boom in loud computing and AI data centers, the energy consumption of computing tasks is going through the roof, growing much quicker than the growth in energy supply or transmission capacity. This could put a hard upper limit on how much more computing capacity can be installed, with the building of new energy sources a lot slower and more difficult to solve quickly than previous chokepoints in the supply of AI chips and GPUs.

This is why any improvement in efficiency in data centers is important. A key part will be switching to specialized, more energy-efficient computing hardware, like TPUs, ASICs, and so on.

(You can read more about this topic in “Invertir en hardware de IA: desde CPU hasta XPU").

Another possibility is improving the efficiency of the energy supply itself. Most data centers operate with a high-voltage power supply, which minimizes transmission losses and helps handle the tremendous amount of energy the entire data center needs.

But the computer chips themselves are much smaller and fragile, operating at lower voltages. So the power supply needs to be converted to a lower voltage, which is not a very efficient operation.

At least until now, as three researchers at the University of California might have discovered a new way to reduce voltage that would be perfect for the steep voltage drop between data center power supply and GPUs/AI chips. They published their findings in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications¹, bajo el título "A hybrid piezoelectric resonator-based DC-DC converter.

Reinventing Data Center Power Conversion

How Power Is Supplied To GPUs

Most modern data centers operate with a power supply distributed throughout the racks at 48V. It is much higher than the previously used standard of 12V. This change was driven by the growing demand for power from modern chips and the lack of space in the racks harboring them.

48V is simply more efficient and requires fewer power conversion components for converting the 120V AC grid supply into DC electricity usable by the silicon chips.

Fuente: AndCables

However, this creates a new challenge. Conventional step-down converters often struggle when dealing with large differences between input and output voltage.

“As that gap increases, efficiency drops and it becomes harder to supply enough current.”

Patrick Mercier – Professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

And the chips themselves, the part actually performing the computing, operate at low voltages, from 1 to 5 volts. So, the switch to a 48V supply to the data center racks causes the efficiency of the conversion to drop.

From Magnets to Piezoelectric Converters

An obstacle in solving this problem is that the current method used to reduce voltage, magnetic induction, is a pretty mature and well-understood technology. As these components have been designed and refined over the years, they are becoming harder to improve further.

“We’ve gotten so good at designing inductive converters that there’s not really much room left to improve them to meet future needs.”

Patrick Mercier – Professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

This is why the researchers took a different approach, using piezoelectric resonators. These small devices store and transfer energy through mechanical vibrations rather than magnetic fields.

Overall, piezoelectric components are likely to be smaller, more energy dense, more efficient, and easier to manufacture at scale than magnetic inductors.

However, until now, piezoelectric converters have struggled to handle large voltage differences and maintain efficiency.

Improving Piezoelectric Converters

To solve the issue of classical piezoelectric converters, the researchers create a hybrid design, merging together a piezoelectric resonator with several small, commercially available capacitors.

The capacitors are arranged in a carefully designed configuration that enables the system to handle larger voltage conversions more effectively. This creates multiple pathways for energy to move through the system, reduces wasted power, and lessens the strain on the resonator.

This prototype successfully converted 48 volts down to 4.8 volts with a peak efficiency of 96.2%. This represents 4x more output current than previous piezoelectric-based designs.

Fuente: ScienceDaily

This is, of course, just a prototype, and a final commercial design will still need some improvement. Notably, it will need refining materials, improving circuit designs, and developing better packaging methods.

Another issue to solve is that the piezoelectric system vibrates, so they cannot be directly soldered onto the circuit board, lest they shake the entire electronic chip.

“Piezoelectric-based converters aren’t quite ready to replace existing power converter technologies yet. But they offer a trajectory for improvement. We need to continue to improve on multiple areas — materials, circuits and packaging — to make this technology ready for data center applications.”

Patrick Mercier – Professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

This will be just one among many new applications emerging for piezoelectric technology, which, for example, also includes:

• Nanomechanical resonators to measure atomic spins.
• Piezoelectric polymers to harvest free energy, un método que piezoelectric composites could use as well.
• Shrinking circuit board with other designs of piezoelectric power converters

Investing In Piezoelectric Technology

Corporación CTS

The market for piezoelectric devices is already a large one, with $35.59B in revenues in 2024, expected to grow 7% CAGR to $55.49B by 2030. One of the leaders in this sector is CTS Corporation, a manufacturer of custom-engineered solutions for many industries, including industrial (heat pump, robotic positioning, metering), transportation, medical, and aerospace & defense.

By far, the automotive sector is the largest segment of the company, making almost half of its revenues. This is, however, a decreasing dependency, with the medical and aerospace segment having grown quickly in recent years and is expected to keep doing so. 60% of sales are done in North America, 22% in Asia, and 18% in Europe.

Fuente: CTS

La empresa fue fundada en 1896, initially as the Chicago Telephone Supply Company, later shortened to CTS.

CTS is producing sensors and electronics for niche applications, using magnetic and piezoelectric physics, and applying them in sensors, chips, imaging, radars, actuators, controls, etc.

Fuente: CTS

The company’s product line-up is well placed to benefit from automation and electrification, as well as healthcare innovation for sensors and less invasive medical procedures and diagnostics.

Reindustrialization will also benefit the company, as its components will be found in industrial robots, printers, and measuring systems through new or updated factories.

Lastly, CTS could benefit from growing military budgets, as its components are found in underwater sonars, unmanned underwater vehicles, ammunition, and satellites.

This makes CTS not just a company likely to benefit from widening utilization of piezoelectric technology, but also of various other key technologies in sensors and electronic components essential in all the major economic trends of reindustrialization, electrification, and growing defense spending.

Entradas Corporación CTS (CTS) Noticias y desarrollos bursátiles

Estudio referenciado

^{1. Ko, JY., Liu, WC.B., & Mercier, P.P. A hybrid piezoelectric resonator-based DC-DC converter. Nature Communications (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70494-0}