Nvidia Qualifies Three BESS Suppliers for AI Factories and Grades Them on Ride-Through and Black Start
- Data Centers News Power Quality Standards & Compliance
Marin Holt
- 0
- 8 minutes read
- Qualified BESS suppliers: three
- Hitachi Energy WD4: 5 MW AC output and 10 MWh
- Tesla Megapack 2XL: 1.93 MW AC output and 3.85 MWh
- Qualified CDU suppliers: three
Nvidia has named the first three battery energy storage suppliers qualified under DSX Ready, a program it launched on September 22, 2026 to vet power and cooling hardware against its DSX AI factory reference designs. Hitachi Energy, LG Energy Solution and Tesla hold the three BESS qualifications. Hitachi Energy listed its WD4 power conversion system with battery storage at 5 MW AC output and 10 MWh. LG Energy Solution listed the LGES Vertech JF2 2HR/4HR AC Link at 5 MW AC output and 10 MWh. Tesla listed the Megapack 2XL at 1.93 MW AC output and 3.85 MWh.
Three cooling distribution unit suppliers qualified at the same time. They are LG Electronics, LiquidStack and Vertiv. Nvidia says more infrastructure and software categories follow later.
The Test List Is a Grid-Behavior List
The qualification does not grade cells or chemistry. It grades what the power conversion system does at its AC terminals. The requirements cover dynamic active and reactive power response, current limiting, ride-through, islanded operation and black-start capability.
Suppliers run the tests themselves, then hand Nvidia the evidence. That package includes raw time-series data, summary plots, test configurations and pass-or-fail statements tied to each Nvidia requirement. Suppliers must also document the industrial standards and regulatory certifications that apply, covering grid connection, fire safety and cybersecurity. Nvidia reviews the submission and approves it inside a defined qualification boundary.
That list reads like an interconnection study. It is one, in effect, run by a chip vendor. Marco Berardi, who leads grid and power quality solutions and service at Hitachi Energy, framed the qualification around deploying and expanding power systems quickly while holding reliability. Chang Beom Kang, who heads the ESS battery division at LG Energy Solution, called the selection a validation of the product line.
The Two Categories Are Not Held to the Same Standard
Storage vendors submit data and wait for Nvidia to sign off. Cooling vendors do not. The CDU path uses a self-qualification suite, so the vendor decides whether its own product meets the functional requirements. The cooling side is attested by the supplier. The storage side is reviewed by Nvidia. Both carry the same DSX Ready label.
Nvidia also draws the boundary in plain words. Passing qualification “does not replace site-level engineering or imply site-level stability.” Transformers, switchgear, generators and the rest of the site sit outside the tested envelope.
Why It Matters
A private buyer is now writing power-quality acceptance criteria for a class of load that utilities are still arguing about. Ride-through and reactive response on a data center battery are the same properties an interconnection agreement bargains over. Nvidia is settling them upstream, at the product level, before the site ever reaches a queue.
Note what the ratings are not. Nvidia qualified individual products against a reference design. It did not publish how many of them a site needs, and no campus-level number appears anywhere in the announcement. The useful signal is the test list, because it tells a utility what behavior the hardware on the other side of the meter has already been asked to prove.
Watch whether the qualified list stays short. Three storage suppliers is a narrow bench for a buyer of this size, and all three already sell into utility-scale storage.
Sources
Critical Perspective
A chip vendor has written acceptance criteria for grid-facing behavior. Ride-through, reactive power response, current limiting, islanded operation and black start are the subjects of interconnection rules and of the standards bodies that maintain them. Nvidia is not replacing any of that. It is adding a private qualification that sits in front of it, and it decides what passes.
Note where the boundary falls. Nvidia says transformers, switchgear, generators and the rest of the site stay outside the qualification, and that passing “does not replace site-level engineering or imply site-level stability.” That is an accurate disclaimer. It also describes most of the equipment where interconnection problems actually appear. A qualified battery in an unqualified electrical room is still an unqualified electrical room.
The two categories do not carry equal evidence. Storage vendors run tests and submit raw time-series data, plots and pass-or-fail statements for Nvidia to review. Cooling vendors run a self-qualification suite and attest to their own result. Both outcomes ship under the same DSX Ready name. A buyer reading the label alone cannot tell which kind of assurance is behind it.
Three qualified storage suppliers is also a thin list, and all three were already large utility-scale incumbents. That is the expected first cut for a program of this kind. It is worth watching whether the list widens, because a short qualified bench for a buyer this large functions as a procurement barrier whatever its technical intent.
