SPARKS DIGITAL
6
Britehouse collaborates with Palota to build the Wetility app P alotas has transformed from a small contractor to the creator of the award-winning Wetility app – an AI- operational efficiencies. “Complementing this expertise, we
states Sofianos. “Coming full circle underscores Britehouse’s dedication to building enduring partnerships through an impactful enterprise development program that drives meaningful, long-term value for all stakeholders,” he concludes.
find emerging tech skills, and Moyaba’s entrepreneurial spirit, passion, and unique focus areas stood out to us,” explains Britehouse’s chief executive officer, Gerard Sofianos. Having qualified with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cape Town, Moyaba gained some experience working at the South African Reserve Bank as an innovation specialist and showed a keen interest in emerging technologies like machine learning (ML). Upon joining Britehouse, Moyaba received mentorship and guidance while working as a contractor through Palota, gaining confidence and additional experience by working on numerous projects across industries, from mining and retail to education and local government contracts. “After six months, Moyaba came to me to share his desire to blaze his own trail. However, he knew he loved working with Britehouse and wanted to deepen the working relationship,” recalls Sofianos. To support his entrepreneurial vision so he could make a bigger impact in the economy by starting his own business, Palota was converted from a contractor to a supplier. Britehouse subcontracted Palota on various projects and helped source an anchor client to get the business off the ground. The Britehouse team guided Moyaba through the startup phase with tailored strategic business and financial advisory services that helped him navigate complex market dynamics and optimise increasing range of chips and compute. The report details how these macro forces have, in turn, shaped five key trends impacting specific areas of the data centre landscape. 1. Powering up for AI Most current data centres still rely on hybrid AC/ DC power distribution from the grid to the IT racks, with three to four conversion stages and associated inefficiencies. This existing approach is under strain as power densities increase, largely driven by AI workloads. The shift to higher-voltage DC architectures enables significant reductions in current, conductor size, and the number of conversion stages while centralising power conversion at the room level. Hybrid AC and DC systems are pervasive, but as full DC standards and equipment mature, higher voltage DC is likely to become more prevalent as rack densities increase. On-site generation and microgrids will also drive the adoption of higher voltage DC. 2. Distributed AI The billions of dollars invested in AI data centres to support large language models (LLMs) to date have been aimed at supporting widespread adoption of AI tools by consumers and businesses. Vertiv believes AI is becoming increasingly critical to businesses but how, and from where, those inference services are delivered will depend on the specific requirements and conditions of the organisation. While this will impact businesses of all types, highly
provided access to essential resources, including shared services, operational tools and industry networks to support sustainable growth,” continues Sofianos. This holistic approach empowered Moyaba to rapidly scale his business, and within 12 months, he gained clients outside the Britehouse ecosystem. Palota has since grown into an African technology company based in Bryanston, Johannesburg, that employs 15 people, offering a range of services to local and international companies, including artificial intelligence (AI), ML, IoT, cloud solution architecture, mobile app and web development, and user experience (UX) design. As the ultimate sign of success, the Britehouse enterprise development programme achieved a strategic full circle when Palota subcontracted Britehouse to co-create an award-winning app for solar energy provider Wetility. Palota handled the app development and back-end technical infrastructure, AI and data engineering to enable the customer journey and integrate intelligent energy usage with AI-driven automation, while Britehouse shaped the UX with an intuitive and sleek user interface. “We no longer just support Palota. The business has matured into a collaborative partner that drives shared business value by including Britehouse in projects,” regulated industries, such as finance, defence, and healthcare, may need to maintain private or hybrid AI environments via on-premise data centres, due to data residency, security, or latency requirements. Flexible, scalable, high-density power and liquid cooling systems could enable capacity through new builds or retrofitting of existing facilities. 3. Energy autonomy accelerates Short-term on-site energy generation capacity has been essential for most standalone data centres for decades to support resiliency. However, widespread power availability challenges are creating conditions to adopt extended energy autonomy, especially for AI data centres. Investment in on-site power generation, via natural gas turbines and other technologies, does have several intrinsic benefits but is primarily driven by power availability challenges. Technology strategies such as Bring Your Own Power (and Cooling) are likely to be part of ongoing energy autonomy plans. 4. Digital twin-driven design and operations With increasingly dense AI workloads and more powerful GPUs also come a demand
powered platform that helps users optimise solar energy use, cut costs, and reduce grid dependence. As a highly impactful way to create employment opportunities and empower South African entrepreneurs, enterprise development plays a critical role in addressing the country’s unique and severe socio-economic challenges. When implemented with the right structure, mentorship, and ongoing support, enterprise development becomes far more than a necessary compliance exercise to align with worthwhile and meaningful empowerment legislation; it becomes a powerful catalyst for inclusive economic growth and mutually beneficial business collaborations. The success story of Palota, a diversified technology company supported by the Britehouse enterprise development programme, illustrates the powerful downstream benefits that focused investment can deliver, including shared business value when the process comes full circle. Founded in 2016 by Kholofelo Moyaba, Palota was brought into the Britehouse ecosystem after identifying the entrepreneur’s technical acumen and business flair. “We conduct thousands of interviews with university graduates each year to to a report from Vertiv, a global leader in critical digital infrastructure. The Vertiv Frontiers report, which draws on expertise from across the organisation, details the technology trends driving current and future innovation, from powering up for AI to digital twins and adaptive liquid cooling. “The data centre industry is continuing to rapidly evolve how it designs, builds, operates and services data centres, in response to the density and speed of deployment demands of AI factories,” said Vertiv chief product and technology officer Scott Armul. “We see cross-technology forces, including extreme densification, driving transformative trends such as higher voltage DC power architectures and advanced liquid cooling that are important to deliver the gigawatt scaling that is critical for AI innovation. On-site energy generation and digital twin technology are also expected to help advance the scale and speed of AI adoption.” The Vertiv Frontiers report builds on and expands Vertiv’s previous annual Data Centre Trends 2025 predictions. The report identifies macro forces driving data centre innovation: • extreme densification – accelerated by AI and HPC workloads; • gigawatt scaling at speed – data centres are now being deployed rapidly and at unprecedented scale; • data centre as a unit of compute – the AI era requires facilities to be built and operated as a single system; and
Enquiries: https://britehouse.dev/
Gerard Sofianos, Britehouse CEO.
Kholofelo Moyaba, founder of Palota.
New Vertiv report explores AI and data centre trends D ata centre innovation continues to be shaped by macro forces and AI- related technology trends, according • silicon diversification – data centre infrastructure must adapt to an
to deploy these complex AI factories with speed. Using AI-based tools, data centres can be mapped and specified virtually, via digital twins, and the IT and critical digital infrastructure can be integrated, often as prefabricated modular designs, and deployed as units of compute, reducing time-to-token by up to 50%. This approach will be important to efficiently achieve the gigawatt-scale buildouts required for future AI advancements. 5. Adaptive, resilient liquid cooling AI workloads and infrastructure have accelerated the adoption of liquid cooling. But conversely, AI can also be used to further refine and optimise liquid cooling solutions. Liquid cooling has become mission-critical for a growing number of operators but AI could provide ways to further enhance its capabilities. AI, in conjunction with additional monitoring and control systems, has the potential to make liquid cooling systems smarter and even more robust by predicting potential failures and effectively managing fluid and components. This trend should lead to increasing reliability and uptime for high-value hardware and associated data/ workloads.
Enquiries: www.vertiv.com
SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS
FEBRUARY 2026
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker