Datacenter batteries are selling years in advance, because AI, says Panasonic

Major memory makers have already sold all the kit they can make this year, creating shortages and price increases. Datacenter infrastructure buyers may soon face the same issues when trying to get their hands on backup batteries. Japanese giant Panasonic on Wednesday outlined its plans to triple production capacity for lithium …

[jake]

Is it just me ...

... or does that picture look like the blade of a safety razor?

https://regmedia.co.uk/2026/03/26/shuttestock_battery.jpg?x=302&y=151&crop=1

_{Down, not across ...}

[Pascal Monett]

"The reason for this push is AI"

It's going to be interesting to see what happens to all these beautiful contracts when the AI bubble bursts.

But until then, go datacenters ! Keep on gobbling up our water and electricity for no_discernable_benefit.

There are a number of other things to take into account.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: "The reason for this push is AI"

> "It's going to be interesting to see what happens to all these beautiful contracts when the AI bubble bursts."

Well, exactly. I've already said that it doesn't matter how watertight and legally binding these agreements are if their customer doesn't have the money to cover their commitments.

It works if it's an existing company like Microsoft or whatever that already has piles of cash, valuable assets in other fields or inherent value in the company itself beyond AI.

AI bubble burst and you regret committing to buying all that stuff at inflated prices? Tough shit, pay me.

OTOH, there's the likes of OpenAI which has always been deep in the red, and dependent upon massive continued streams of cash being shovelled by investors in just to cover the ludicrous amounts they're spending.

If the AI bubble bursts and the investors don't think they're going to make their money back, off goes the money tap, the value of the company itself collapses to next to nothing, and in the wake of the carnage its assets, datacentres, et al are likely worth a fraction of what they paid for them.

You can drag the bankrupt, debt-ridden corpse of the company into court if you like, but there's nothing to pay you with even if they wanted to.

[that one in the corner]

Automotive production switched to datacentre

Yay let's make the switch to electric cars more expensive. We were starting to see, at the level of our smaller local dealerships, EVs that were just EVs, eschewing all the "premium features" crap and getting to a reasonable price.

Now we may be seeing AI barn building pushing up the price of another consumer product. And this time, the output from those barns is going to include - bleeping useless "premium features" to go into the vehicles they've just overpriced! Share and Enjoy.

[Roland6]

Re: Automotive production switched to datacentre

I misread that part of the article and took it to mean Panasonic were refocusing on - the more profitable(?) - datacentre battery market and thus starving the EV market of batteries…

[Moldskred]

There's a lot of datacenters _planned_, but preciously few of them appears likely to actually be built. Once it all comes crashing down, there's going to be a lot of bag-holders. I hope they've requested money up front for all these batteries.

[Michael Strorm]

I doubt it. Most of those agreements seem to revolve around smoke and mirrors commitments and "you scratch my back" agreements to spend/buy $X per year over the next ten years (or whatever) rather than upfront money.

The likes of OpenAI are already deep in the red and have always been dependent upon continued infusions of investment cash and almost certainly wouldn't have the money to pay that much upfront.

The companies who *would*- theoretically- be able to do so are those like (e.g.) Microsoft which already has large amounts of cash, assets and value outside the field of AI, making it likely to survive the bubble bursting. Which would make upfront payment less essential, since they'd still be around to be sued up the wazoo if they hadn't met any agreed commitments.

[OSYSTEM]

Why are they protecting compute units?

Why TF are they using batteries to protect all these 0,15 MW GPU racks?

Just reboot them.

Storage and config needs to be protected but that is a much much lower power requirement.

(Yes, the datacenter idiocy is hurting our business. It is impossible to get hold of almost any datacentre equipment now, including UPSes.)

[Roland6]

Re: Why are they protecting compute units?

>” Why TF are they using batteries to protect all these 0,15 MW GPU racks?”

Probably because they can’t failover one bit-barn to another bit-barn…

[jake]

Re: Why are they protecting compute units?

More likely it's to amplify the mythology that AI is absolutely vital to the corporation.

[DS999]

Oh great

So we can add EVs, utility batteries, and home batteries to the markets AI is going to fuck over.

That bubble can't burst soon enough for me!