X Data Center Fire in Oregon began inside the Potenza cabinet, the authorities say

A recent, long hours The fire in a data center used by Elon Musk’s X may have started after an electric or mechanical question in a power supply system, according to an official fire investigation.

Wired was the first to report on the flame, which took place on May 22nd in Hillsboro, Oregon. The Giant of the Data Center Digital Realty manages the 13 acres site and more people who are familiar with the issue previously said to Wired that the social platform X Musk has servers there.

The fire centers are rare, with about two dozens of accidents known in the last ten years in thousands of structures globally, according to various Researchers. But the growing demand for generative technology, which is based on large advanced computer clusters – is extending the size and power needs of the data centers. The intense load in the end could leave the artificial intelligence data centers most vulnerable to fires from overheating or malfunctions.

At Data Center X, the firefighters initially believed that a lithium ion battery could have been involved in the fire, but this did not end to be the case, Hillsboro Fire & Rescue The spokesman Piseth Pich says.

The fire turned on a Schneider Electric Galaxy VX Uppertent (UPS), second -down A report by the firefighters obtained from wiring. The UPS system, which has the size of an automatic distributor and is made of metal and plastic, acts as a filter and temporary battery, providing constant electricity in case of interruption or other problems. They are common in data centers, experts in the sector say.

“A UPS hosts large battery packs which, just like electric-wives batteries, can be susceptible to fires caused by electric faults or temporary charges,” says Shaolei Ren, an electric and IT engineer at UC Riverside who studies the data centers.

An investigator of the firefighters was not able to visually identify a cause for the ignition of the UPS cabinet, but was unable to exclude the electrical or mechanical failure of “a complex electrical system”, according to the report. The charcoalized direction suggested that the fire began inside the furniture.

The Digital Realty William Reynolds spokesman said that the company could “confirm that the fire was electrical and not caused by lithium -ion batteries”. His colleague Helen Bleasdale adds that the company has shared “relevant updates with interested customers” and “has also implemented improvements to prevent the anniversary”. They refused to elaborate these statements.

Schneider Electric and Xai, who owns X, did not respond to requests for comment.

The firefighters arrived 11 minutes after the first fire alarm, according to the firefighters. Inside an electric room on the second floor, they met smoke from the floor to the ceiling and scattered the inhale locker with fire extinguishers. The report lists about $ 260,000 in losses for the data center, including the total destruction of a power cabinet. Two neighbors have suffered damage. No injuries have been reported.

Russell Carroll, an electrical engineer whose California Emi Sleuth company helps to investigate fires, says that inadequate cooling and monitoring the temperature of power systems can lead to fires. “A cabinet with poor ventilation may have caused the overheating of the batteries,” he says, observing that the photos of the scene “show a perforated panel that would provide good ventilation”.