Navitas Semiconductor shares surged 206.8% in premarket trading following the announcement of a collaboration with Nvidia to develop an advanced 800V high-voltage direct current (HVDC) architecture for AI data centers.

This significant increase comes as the semiconductor company disclosed its partnership leveraging its GaNFast gallium nitride and GeneSiC silicon carbide technologies to enhance Nvidia’s ’Kyber’ rack-scale systems. The initiative aims to overcome the limitations of the current 54V in-rack power distribution, which is inadequate for power demands surpassing 200 kilowatts.

Nvidia’s proposed shift to 800V HVDC from the traditional 13.8 kV AC grid power could revolutionize energy efficiency by reducing copper busbar bulkiness and minimizing energy loss through fewer conversion steps. The potential for a 45% reduction in copper usage for a 1MW rack, compared to the conventional 54V systems, underscores the significance of this development for the growing power requirements of modern AI data centers.

Navitas’ GaNSafe power ICs and GeneSiC technology are at the forefront of this technological advancement. The company’s recent innovations, including a 3.2 kW power supply that is 40% smaller than silicon-based alternatives and an 8.5 kW AI data center power supply with 98% efficiency, exemplify the strides Navitas is making in the field.

Gene Sheridan, CEO and co-founder of Navitas, expressed pride in the company’s selection by Nvidia for this project, emphasizing the importance of Navitas’ technology in supporting Nvidia’s infrastructure from the grid to the GPU.

Nvidia expects the new 800V HVDC architecture to not only improve power efficiency by up to 5% but also to significantly reduce maintenance and cooling costs, with a 70% decrease in power supply unit failures and the ability to directly connect HVDC to IT and compute racks.