Schneider Electric and EcoXpert Partner Advanced Power Technology Win ‘Data Centre Consolidation / Upgrade Project of the Year’ at the DCS Awards 2025

Schneider Electric has won the ‘Data Centre Consolidation/Upgrade Project of the Year’ category at the DCS Awards 2025, alongside its longstanding EcoXpert Partner, Advanced Power Technology (APT).

Together, the company’s deployed a new modular data centre at The Pirbright Institute, enabling it to stay abreast of new technological advancements, including artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), and fast track its scientific and viral research programmes. The new ‘Containerised Data Centre (CDC)’ met the Institute’s requirement for a scalable, resilient, flexible, and energy efficient infrastructure system that would ensure the highest levels of availability and continuity.

“We are delighted to accept this award, which reflects our continued commitments to efficiency, innovation, and partner collaboration in the digital infrastructure sector,” said Mark Yeeles, Vice President, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric UK and Ireland. “This award further vindicates the role of data centres as the fourth utility and a vital part of life science research, and we’re glad to be recognised alongside our trusted partners at APT for our work together at The Pirbright Institute.”

“We’re proud to be recognised by the DCS Awards for our work to develop a new modular data centre at The Pirbright Institute, in partnership with Schneider Electric,” said John Andrew, Solution Architect, Advanced Power Technology. “The new containerised facility provides Pirbright with a secure, flexible and scalable solution – enabling its users to conduct world-leading research, while supporting future technology evolutions.”

Future proofing research

The Pirbright Institute is at the forefront of global viral research, operating as one of the UK's leading virus diagnostics and surveillance centres. As a world-leading centre of excellence it conducts research into the control and surveillance of virus diseases of farm animals, and viruses that spread from animals to humans.

In recent years, it has undergone significant digital transformation, and as part of that process, leveraged an advanced data centre solution from APT and Schneider Electric to enable new levels of scientific collaboration – all while adhering to strict data sovereignty, storage, resiliency, and security standards.

Due to the mission-critical nature of its research, and the need to provide continuity of service during any modernisation projects, the Institute had to identify a new strategy to build out its infrastructure to support future technological requirements for HPC and AI.

First seeking a strategy to modernise its legacy IT and comms rooms and deploy them away from its existing buildings, it began to explore the benefits of a containerised data centre and engaged with APT to design and specify its new critical infrastructure system.

As such, the Institute’s new ‘Containerised Data Centre (CDC)’ uses key components from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxureä for Data Centres solutions portfolio, enabling APT to pre-configure its design and pre-test the solution off-site for faster deployment. The project was delivered in three phases and within a strict timeline of 12-weeks, ensuring minimal impact on the Institute’s business and critical applications.

With the containerised system at its core, Pirbright’s infrastructure is future-proofed for new evolutions in high-tech research equipment such as sequencers, and diamond-light processes for virus analysis that can generate data sets of 700GB each. In turn, this allows them to leverage new advancements in HPC, AI and GPU-powered computing, enabling them to identify breakthroughs in viral research at a far faster rate.

The approach has allowed The Pirbright Institute to bring its IT infrastructure in line with its development plans, ensuring it retains its place as the UK’s foremost centre of excellence in research and surveillance of viral diseases.

Furthermore, it has the flexibility and capacity to support scientists and researchers as they leverage state-of-the-art laboratories, and the specialised requirements of high-tech virology, HPC, and the vast data it produces – enabling it to further fast-track its knowledge and contributions to global health and welfare for animals with a solid IT foundation on which to develop ground-breaking research for decades to come.