By Ron Chen, Correspondent ASEAN Region

A global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, Vertiv has announced the opening of a new factory in Rugvica, Croatia to support its integrated modular solutions (IMS) business in EMEA. Compared to the previous factory, the site offers 130 per cent more indoor space and 60 per cent more outdoor space and can easily be expanded to seize the opportunities of the rapidly growing prefabricated modular data centers (PFM) market. The factory also includes a number of innovations for the construction of PFM modules as well as thermal management air handling units.

“We hear a lot about IT trends and the upcoming advances in technologies such as of 5G, IoT, and AI, but less about the innovative physical infrastructure that’s behind it,” says president for Vertiv in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Giordano Albertazzi. “We are seeing strong growth in the adoption of prefabricated modular solutions to support these new technologies, and as market leaders we are investing both in capacity and innovation to continue to meet our customers’ needs and stay ahead of the curve. This new site ultimately means supporting the plans and enabling the success of our EMEA and global customers, and is reflective of our continued investment in the markets in which we operate.”

“The Rugvica factory boasts all the latest technologies, production processes, tools and testing labs,” says VP for Vertiv’s IMS business in EMEA, Viktor Petik. “The facility is designed to provide a complete range of prefabricated modular solutions, from cable landing stations powering the internet and connecting geographies, to bespoke data centre building blocks. The new factory testifies our commitment towards innovation and growth, and I am proud to say that we’ve created about 150 jobs in the last year, many being engineering or skilled professionals from this region.”

Last year, Vertiv was ranked by technology analyst firm Omdia as one of the leading suppliers in the PFM data centre market  with the second highest market share worldwide. The research highlighted that benefits such as the ability to scale with confidence are driving significant growth in the adoption of PFM solutions in all geographies. Omdia attributed this strong growth to factors including scalability, the benefits of offsite manufacturing and integration, and speed of deployment.

PFM data centres come in many different forms with varying use cases, including IT and facility-specific designs and so-called all-in-one modules with integrated IT, power, and cooling infrastructure, which are commonly used in education, industrial, and healthcare applications as well as remote and harsh environments. The ‘plug and play’ approach has the benefit of not only cutting the time for start-up and commissioning, to just a few days instead of weeks or months, but also reducing the potential for quality issues, as components are pre-integrated and pre-tested off-site.

Vertiv’s PFM designs cover a range of different offerings to meet specific customer needs, such as the Vertiv™ SmartMod™, a fully self-contained, easily-configurable and ready-to-order PFM product range that enables new data centre whitespace to be rapidly deployed, and the Vertiv™ Power Module, an efficient, power-dense critical infrastructure that can be quickly deployed as a standalone unit. Vertiv also provides completely custom PFM solutions, which include design, project management and system integration.