The fastest growing physical buildout in North American industry this year is data center construction, driven by AI training and inference. These facilities are heat dense, power hungry, and instrumented at scale, which makes them a natural fit for Paquin’s portfolio of pressure, temperature, humidity, flow, level, gas detection, and connectivity solutions in harmony with our in-house engineering team.
Data centers themselves need dense environmental monitoring and control while utilities and developers are upgrading energy infrastructure to supply these sites, both creating additional demand for industrial sensors. Independent analyses project that U.S. data centers could account for 6.7 to 12 percent of national electricity consumption by 2028, which is why both the facilities and the grid around them are being planned, financed, and built now.
Why The Build is Accelerating
AI servers concentrate unprecedented compute per rack, releasing large amounts of heat that must be removed continuously to protect uptime and hardware life. ASHRAE and LBNL guidance emphasizes tight control of dry‑bulb temperature, dew point, and relative humidity in IT spaces, with measurements taken at the point of heat generation rather than relying on room averages (Center of Expertise for Data Center Energy, Berkeley Lab). This pushes operators toward more sensors per rack and per aisle and toward closed‑loop control strategies tied to those measurements.
Cooling Architectures Demand More Sensing
Traditional air‑cooled rooms still dominate, but higher rack power densities are pushing operators toward liquid cooling, including direct‑to‑chip cold plates and rear‑door heat exchangers. These architectures add manifolds, cooling distribution units, and outdoor heat rejection stages that require continuous flow, temperature, pressure, and leak monitoring to operate safely and efficiently (Schneider Electric). Vendor and standards guidance now treats sensing as part of the cooling fabric, not an add‑on.
In raised‑floor air systems, federal best‑practice guidance calls for controlling CRAH or CRAC fan speed to maintain underfloor pressure set points, a strategy that depends on reliable differential pressure sensing. As operators raise supply temperatures and dynamically balance airflow, low‑range differential pressure transmitters across tiles, cabinets, aisles, and filters become core to stability and energy performance.
Environmental Monitoring is Not Optional
Energy Star and industry white papers recommend distributed temperature and humidity sensing at multiple heights within each rack and throughout hot and cold aisles to avoid hotspots and to manage dew‑point risk. For facilities shifting to containment, monitoring low differential pressures between zones helps verify that curtains and barriers are performing and that hot air is not leaking into cold aisles. This is automated controls work, and it scales with facility size.
Safety and UPS Rooms Add Gas Detection
Battery rooms and UPS spaces create additional sensing needs. Lead‑acid systems can off‑gas hydrogen during charge cycles, and lithium‑ion systems introduce early off‑gas and fire detection requirements. Applicable codes and guidance reference hydrogen monitoring and ventilation control, and vendors now offer dedicated detectors and algorithms for battery off‑gas signatures. These applications are standard features of large campuses and belong in the bill of materials from design through commissioning.
Power Infrastructure Growth
Meeting AI load growth requires more than on‑site generation. U.S. regulators and the Department of Energy are moving to expand transmission and accelerate grid projects. FERC’s Order 1920 requires long‑term regional transmission planning and broadened cost‑allocation methods, while DOE’s Grid Deployment Office is deploying programs and capacity contracts to bring new lines online. Utilities are responding with multi‑year capital plans to meet data center and industrial electrification loads. These projects (substations, switchyards, transmission corridors, district cooling and thermal plants) are sensor‑rich environments.
Paquin Sensor Packages for AI Data Centers and Power Infrastructure
· Differential pressure transmitters for airflow control: Use low range differential pressure (±0.1 to 5 in. w.c.) to stabilize underfloor plenum set points, maintain slight positive rack face pressure, verify hot and cold aisle pressurization, and trend filter loading. Pair fast response transmitters with CRAH/CRAC VFD control for tighter PID loops and lower fan energy. Paquin supplies panel mount and DIN rail options, with analog or IO-Link, HART, and Modbus outputs. (Paquin Differential Pressure Transmitters)
· Distributed temperature and humidity at rack level: Instrument top, middle, and bottom of each rack with quick-read probes. Calculate dew point to stay within recommended envelopes while avoiding overcooling. Feed signals to BMS or DCIM for hotspot detection, workload-aware cooling, and alarm thresholds. Paquin provides calibrated probes with narrow tolerance bands and field-replaceable elements to reduce downtime. (Paquin Temperature Sensing Products; Paquin Humidity & Temperature Sensing Products by Galltec + mela)
· Liquid cooling loop instrumentation: On direct-to-chip and rear-door heat exchanger loops, place flow meters on supply and return, pressure transducers across cold plates and CDUs, and RTDs at inlets and outlets. Add leak detection in trays and manifolds with addressable zones. Specify wetted materials compatible with your coolant chemistry. Paquin packages sensors, cabling, and quick-connect harnesses for CDUs and manifold skids. (Paquin Flow Sensing Products)
· Battery and UPS room gas detection: Install hydrogen detectors for lead-acid charge areas and early off-gas detection suitable for lithium-ion rooms. Integrate to ventilation control, strobe/horn, and EPO logic with relays plus BACnet or Modbus for trending. Paquin delivers fixed detectors with test ports, bump-test kits, and calibration schedules matched to your maintenance windows. (Paquin Gas Detection Products)
· Access, containment, and safety sensing: Use optical and proximity sensors for door status, containment curtains and panels, rack interlocks, and e-latches. Tie points into DCIM or BMS using dry contact, IO-Link, or serial interfaces. Paquin offers compact form factors with high ingress protection ratings for aisle environments. (Paquin Optical Sensing Products; Paquin Proximity Sensing Products)
· Power and plant ancillary points: Add temperature and level sensors on heat rejection equipment, differential pressure across heat exchangers, and vibration switches on pumps and fans. Paquin supplies sensors pre-terminated for MCCs and field junction boxes to streamline commissioning. (Paquin Level Sensing Products)
How Paquin Supports Engineering Teams
· Controls-ready signals
Analog 4–20 mA and 0–10 V, plus IO-Link, HART, Modbus RTU and TCP. Device descriptions and EDS files available for fast integration. (Paquin Products with Standard and Non-Standard Communication Protocols)
· Accuracy and stability
Tight accuracy classes with long-term drift specs suited for closed-loop control. Factory calibration with certificates and serial traceability.
· Environmental and ingress
Options for high humidity spaces, washdown, and outdoor service. IP65 to IP67 enclosures, conformal-coated electronics, and -40°F to 185°F (-40°C to 85°C) electronics ratings where required.
· Direct Engineering Support
Our engineers provide front-end design and sizing of instrumentation for thermal and electrical plant, develop P&IDs and instrument indexes, and provide datasheets with calibrated ranges, accuracy classes, turndown, RTD/TC specifications, and wetted-materials compatibility. We can define sensor placement for airflow and liquid cooling loops, differential pressure set points, dew-point control strategy, and leak-detection zoning; specify ingress, EMC, and environmental ratings; and map protocols to BMS/DCIM and PLCs across controls-ready signals.
· Delivery and lifecycle
Kitted BOMs per room or skid, serialized spares, and replacement programs that match PM cycles. Paquin can pre-label devices by location and loop number for clean turnover packages.
Data Center and Power Grid Infrastructure Focus
· Hyperscale and colocation developers
New campuses and retrofits are moving to higher rack densities and liquid cooling. Paquin is the industry recommended sensor partner for containment verification, CDU and manifold instrumentation, and rack-level environmental monitoring, offering pre-engineered sensor kits per hall, with documented set points and I/O maps.
· Mechanical EPCs and cooling OEMs
For CRAH/CRAC, CDUs, and heat rejection plants, Paquin’s differential pressure, flow, and temperature packages are validated against control strategies. We can account for specific engineering cases by using P&IDs with tag lists, and point schedules. Paquin can ship panel-ready assemblies to shorten FAT and SAT.
· Utilities and grid developers
Substations, switchyards, and district thermal plants serving data center loads require pressure, temperature, level, and gas detection assemblies. Paquin supplies ruggedized sensors for transformer monitoring, breaker cabinets, cooling towers, and thermal storage with protocols compatible with existing SCADA.
What This Means: Data Center and Electrical Grid Roadmaps
Data center thermal and electrical demand is scaling quickly, and sensing density is rising alongside it. Architectures deploying today benefit from reliable, controls-ready instrumentation that shortens commissioning, holds tight set points, and simplifies O&M. The demand signal is clear and Paquin already manufactures and supports the pressure, temperature, humidity, flow, level, gas detection, and connectivity products that data center and power grid infrastructure projects require. Reach out to us today to inquire about our products, or to receive a quote.