How to compare container AI data centres
Every vendor in this category publishes a capacity figure and a PUE. Neither tells you whether the product will work in your building. These are the eight questions that do, and CoralDC publishes its answers to all of them. The eight questions cover populated load against thermal capability, overhead service clearance, floor loading, service aisle width, facility water, fluid chemistry and its regulatory trajectory, asset ownership, and country of engineering.
The eight questions
| # | Ask the vendor | Why it matters | CoralDC answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is the populated load, not the thermal capability? | Capability describes an empty box. Populated load describes what you will actually run. | C40: 214 kW at H200 class, 300 kW at B200 class, against 800 kW capability. |
| 2 | What is the overhead service clearance above the equipment? | It determines whether a node swap takes an hour or a day. | 770 mm on the C40, 1,080 mm on the C40-HC. Required is approximately 906 mm. |
| 3 | What is the floor loading? | It determines whether your slab or deck accepts the unit without structural work. | 855 kg per square metre at each tank position. |
| 4 | How wide is the service aisle? | Below roughly 1,000 mm, two technicians cannot work safely. | 1,300 mm on all container pods. |
| 5 | Does it need facility water, and in which climates? | Water is a permitting constraint before it is a cost. | None in dry rejection configuration. Annual viability confirmed per site. |
| 6 | What is the fluid, and what is its regulatory trajectory? | Fluorinated fluids have already been withdrawn from this market once. | PAO or synthetic dielectric, fluid agnostic. No fluorinated chemistry. |
| 7 | Who owns the asset, and can operations be brought in-house? | It determines whether you have a supplier or a dependency. | The customer owns it. Operations transfer either way, reversibly. |
| 8 | What is the country of engineering? | For government, defence and critical infrastructure it is frequently a scored criterion. | Canada. Engineering, integration and deployment based in Vancouver, British Columbia. |
The question behind the questions
A brochure states what a product can do. An engineering document states what it can do and what it costs you to get there. If a vendor cannot answer questions two, three and four from published material, the product has not been engineered to the depth the answer implies.
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