Nvidia unveils modular AI factory pods to build data centres in 14 days

Nvidia aims to ship modular artificial intelligence factory “pods” packed in a box about the size of a standard shipping container, as it bids to reduce the time needed to set up AI data centres to as little as two weeks.

The pods “will change the way people build AI centres,” Nvidia’s billionaire chief executive, Jensen Huang, told attendees of the Nvidia GTC conference in Berlin.

The announcement came as Firmus co-founder Oliver Curtis was in the German capital shoring up a funding deal with Nvidia after the collapse of the AI factory company’s ASX float.

Firmus has a contract with ASX-listed Maas Group, headed by former billionaire Wes Maas, for Maas subsidiary JLE to deliver Firmus its modular Power Cubes for the company’s AI factory projects.

The Curtis-led company has also heavily promoted what it claims to be its own technology that uses 33% less energy and 99% less water to keep high-performance graphics processing units, or chips, cool in its AI factories.

Firmus is a neocloud heavily connected to Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company. Nvidia has an equity stake in Firmus and supplies it with its AI chips.

Jensen Huang speaking in Berlin. Pic: Getty Images, as appeared in The Australian

Separately in Berlin, Nvidia also unveiled its DSX AI factory platform, which minimises water consumption for cooling and uses less power for the same AI output.

The announcement of what Nvidia calls the DSX Pod focuses on mitigating delays in the construction of data centres and reducing the time it takes AI systems to process

“Each gigawatt data centre generates tens of billions of dollars (revenue) per year, and so if we just said it’s $40bn per year of revenue generation that comes out of that infrastructure, if that is delayed by just three months that’s $10bn worth of revenues,” Huang said in Berlin.

“DSX Pod allows AI factories to be built at the speed of light” meaning “more intelligence per watt (and a) shorter time to first token.”

Firmus was briefly displayed as a neocloud on the big screen behind the billionaire during his speech, which listed a large group of companies Nvidia deals with across the AI stack.

Sydney-headquartered and Nasdaq-listed Iren, headed by Dan and Will Roberts, featured as an AI factory partner in a Nvidia product launch video, alongside UK-based NScale, headed by 33-year-old Australian Josh Payne, as well as Dutch firm Nebius, and US company Lambda.

The DSX Pod will be built by Nvidia partners such as Armada, Bull, Crusoe, DayOne – which is building the data centre that will house Firmus chips in Batam, Indonesia – and other companies such as Schneider Electric, Lenovo, Dell Technologies and Wistron.

Prefabricated pods assembled in the desert as revealed by Huang. Pic as appeared in The Australian

“The units arrive ready to connect out of the box to a prepared site’s power, cooling, networking and other supporting infrastructure, reducing deployment time from six months to as little as 14 days,” Nvidia said in a statement.

Huang said: “An AI factory creates value when it starts producing tokens – not when construction is complete.

“We’re bringing factory-built precision and speed to AI infrastructure construction reducing deployment time from months to weeks so customers can scale capacity and bring revenue-generating production online faster.”

The pods are slated for rollout in early 2027. The Nvidia partners will complete rack-to-rack cabling, wiring, piping and functional validation before shipment.

The Australian earlier this week revealed that Curtis had flown in his private jet from Singapore to Berlin, and that it is seeking an emergency $US3bn private raising after its hyped $44bn sharemarket listing in Australia fizzled when investors baulked at an outsized valuation and limited track record.

Firmus also has contracts with Meta and OpenAI.

This article first appeared in The Australian as Nvidia unveils modular AI factory pods to build data centres in 14 days.

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