The European ALL2GaN programme closed its thirty-six months of work in April 2026, at the same time as the AI data centre ecosystem was holding its largest annual gathering in Barcelona. The timing is telling: it marks the moment at which European gallium nitride and the high-voltage DC conversion architecture of the data centre converge on the same point of the industrial roadmap. This article reviews the data points presented at the OCP EMEA Summit 2026 that support this convergence with verifiable external evidence.

The convergence the summit confirmed

The convergence between the 800 V bus of railway traction and the 800 V bus of the AI data centre had until recently been a prospective thesis. The OCP EMEA Summit 2026 turned it into an established fact, documented by three independent industrial sources.

Schneider Electric set the limit of the 54 VDC bus at 400 kW/rack — the same threshold above which HVDC architecture becomes necessary, not optional. OmniOn Power quantified the difference: moving from the ORv3 chain (480 V → 54 V → 12 V → core, η 83.8 %) to the Next Gen 800 V chain (480 V → 800 V → 54 V → 12 V → core, η 85.8 %) saves 1.9 percentage points of efficiency — 2 MW for every 100 MW of installed DC capacity. Eaton displayed at the CCIB Innovation Village a physical prototype of the 800 V DC Side Car with a 33 kW ORV3 Power Shelf and scalable DC connectors at 63, 125 and 250 A.

The most significant data point, however, was not a number but a sentence. Schneider Electric, in its Day 2 plenary keynote, justified the 800 V sidecar with four arguments, the last of which was: leverages established EV supply chain. The EV supply chain — the same value chain in which Premium operates with its portfolio of converters for traction, e-mobility and railway auxiliaries — is the argument one of the world’s leading energy management manufacturers used to explain why the 800 V sidecar is the lowest-risk option in the short term.

“48–54 VDC rack power distribution and 480 VAC supply voltage approaches reach practical limits beyond ~400 kW/rack.”

— Schneider Electric, OCP EMEA Summit 2026, Barcelona, 30 April 2026

For a broader overview of the architecture, see The 800 VDC revolution: the energy engine behind AI.

ALL2GaN T6.2 Transport: programme context

The ALL2GaN programme — Affordable smart GaN IC solutions for greener applications — was launched in May 2023 in Villach and closed in April 2026. Coordinated by Infineon Technologies Austria AG, funded by the Chips Joint Undertaking (successor to KDT-JU) and framed within the European Chips Act and the Green Deal, it involved 45 industrial and research partners from twelve European countries.

Premium SA participates in the programme’s Transport cluster as a contributor to the development of compact power electronics building blocks for auxiliary applications. The UC3 use case from the official WP6 M36 deliverable defines the technical context: power converters for traction auxiliaries meeting the temperature, vibration, EMC and reliability requirements of the railway environment certified to EN 50155. This is exactly the design discipline profile the 800 V sidecar for data centres requires.

Why GaN is the sidecar technology

Gallium nitride is not merely an incremental improvement over silicon for DC/DC converters. It is the technology that makes possible the WBG DC/DC shelf stage of the Next Gen 800 V chain — the conversion from 800 V to 54 V at η 98.50 % in a high power density format.

GaN’s advantages over silicon in this context are threefold. First, the switching frequency can be five to ten times higher than conventional silicon, reducing the size of magnetic components and enabling power densities above 40–60 W/in³ on platforms with PCB-integrated planar magnetics. Second, switching losses are dramatically lower, with peak efficiencies above 97–98 % in real operation — not just catalogue conditions. Third, compared to SiC, GaN offers a complementary sweet spot in the medium-voltage, high-frequency band that is exactly the one dominating the WBG DC/DC shelf stage of the 800 V sidecar.

The contribution of the ALL2GaN programme is that these advantages now have a verified industrial value chain in Europe: from substrate to packaging, from reliability to application, production can be carried out entirely within the Union. This answers the industrial sovereignty question the sidecar architecture will face as regulated European hyperscalers demand supply chain traceability for their power components.

The EV supply chain as a bridge between worlds

The Schneider Electric phrase — leverages established EV supply chain — has an immediate practical implication for any power electronics manufacturer with a background in traction or e-mobility.

The components that make the 800 V sidecar possible — high-current DC connectors, high-voltage DC busbars, 4,000–5,000 A DC circuit breakers, copper cables with insulation for 800–1,000 V — are the same components the EV industry has standardised over the past decade. The technical qualifications, insulation tests, DC arc tests and earthing protocols developed for the electric vehicle are directly applicable to the data centre sidecar.

For Premium SA, which has operated for over 40 years in the railway and industrial power electronics supply chain for high-reliability applications, this has a direct technical reading: the company’s industrial track record is not just a credibility antecedent — it is the technical foundation that the sidecar market requires.

Key data points presented at OCP EMEA Summit 2026

Data point	Technical implication
54 V bus limit: ~400 kW/rack (Schneider Electric)	Defines the threshold above which HVDC distribution becomes necessary. A publicly verifiable data point.
Copper mass 200 kg → 13.5 kg per 1 MW rack (OmniOn Power)	Quantifies the physical and material advantage of 800 V distribution.
Chain efficiency gain: +1.9 pp (ORv3 83.8 % → 800 V 85.8 %) (OmniOn Power)	Concrete efficiency improvement across the full conversion chain, with public attribution.
“Leverages established EV supply chain” (Schneider Electric)	Components, qualifications and test practices from traction and e-mobility carry over to the 800 V sidecar.
Physical 800 V DC Side Car prototype (Eaton)	Confirms the architecture has moved from literature to product engineering.

Sources

• ALL2GaN (Chips JU, formerly KDT-JU) — WP6 M36 public deliverable (UC3, T6.2 Transport).
• Schneider Electric — keynote, OCP EMEA Summit 2026 (30 April 2026): “Next-generation AI rack densities”, “The sidecar is the immediate enabler.”
• OmniOn Power — Philip Zuk keynote, OCP EMEA Summit 2026 (29 April 2026): ORv3 vs. 800 V chain and Osprey portfolio.
• OCP Foundation — DCF Power Distribution LVDC v1.0 (29 April 2026).