Flex, Musashi Energy Solutions Partner to Mitigate Utility Power Challenges in AI Data Centers

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Flex and Musashi Energy Solutions a group company of Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co., Ltd., announced an extensive collaboration to supply Flex-designed and manufactured Capacitor-based Energy Storage Systems (CESS) featuring Musashi's Hybrid SuperCapacitor (HSC) technology. These systems are designed to integrate with server rack power systems to address significant challenges with utility power in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. First to market with Musashi's HSC technology, Flex has collaborated with Musashi to develop strategic technology and product development roadmaps for current and future products that enable hyperscale operators to mitigate utility power fluctuations in data centers deploying AI workloads.

Flex's CESS solutions are designed to balance peak power and protect the grid from intense power surges and line disturbances during AI training and inference activities taking place in modern data center environments. Musashi's state-of-the-art HSCs are designed to provide high-reliability energy storage in many applications and are known for their power density, longevity, and reliability. The technology reduces equipment size, weight and total cost of ownership.

Key features of the CESS include:

• The ability to support and balance power supply systems during large power transients
• Efficient energy management and the reduction of large power transients or spikes produced by AI workloads by alternately supplying and absorbing energy in its internal Hybrid Supercapacitors, which are supplied by Musashi
• A significantly longer lifespan than current battery energy storage systems, with ability to provide multi-million charge/discharge cycles – essential for high performance capacity and dependability needed in the data center
• A wide operating temperature and inherent safety through Musashi's Hybrid SuperCapacitors, with cells able to operate in temperature ranges from minus 30 to over 70 degrees Celsius, plus UL 810A certification and completion of UL 9540A testing for thermal runaway at the cell level

"We are proud to lead the charge in powering the next generation of AI innovation alongside Flex to address the power challenges needed to unleash capacity for explosive data center growth," said Frank DeLattre, President of Musashi Energy Solutions in North America. "Our partnership with Flex for its new CESS product will bring reliable, efficient and scalable power solutions to the market. Musashi Energy Solutions continues to invest heavily in future Hybrid SuperCapacitor cell development to meet the future power density demands in AI computing as well as the manufacturing capacity required for customers to meet the forecasted cell volume."

"Our collaboration with Musashi is central to developing our innovative CESS solutions to sustainably support the complex power demands of AI data centers worldwide," said Mattias Jansson, Vice President of Power Solutions at Flex. "Together with Musashi, our technology and innovation portfolio plans enable Flex to provide hyperscale operators with advanced energy storage systems that enable them to address long-term energy transitions. Our CESS solutions are another proof point of how Flex is enabling customers to maximize AI server cluster computing performance and unlock data center capacity as AI applications drive unprecedented growth."

Flex is slated to begin production of its CESS in the first half of Calendar Year 2025, with commercial availability expected within one quarter of production start.