AI racks are moving to 800-volt power and running out of room for it. QPT's new converter fits far more power into the same space, and is available to license.
Cambridge, UK, [28 September 2026]. QPT has unveiled the qMicroModule IBC, a new intermediate bus converter for next-generation AI data centres. It takes the 800-volt DC power now being adopted across AI racks and converts it in a single step to the 6-volt supply that feeds the processors' voltage regulators, and is designed to deliver up to five times the power density of the converters used today. QPT is opening the design to semiconductor and power-system partners to license into their own products.
Power density is the constraint that now matters most in an AI rack. A rack is a fixed size, and a growing share of it is taken up by power equipment rather than by processors, so every litre spent converting power is a litre not computing. The industry is moving to 800-volt DC power to keep up, led by NVIDIA's 800 VDC rack architecture, and the converter that steps it down is becoming the bottleneck: today's best resonant designs typically run at around 1 MHz, with little headroom left for the power the next chip generations will need.
“The whole industry agrees the AI rack is moving to 800 volts. The real question is how you convert that power without giving up the space the processors need. We've found a genuinely different way to do it, and we're excited to work with partners on next-generation designs that can make a real difference to one of the fastest-growing needs in AI.” - James Cannings, CEO, QPT
What the qMicroModule IBC delivers
More compute in every rack: designed to reach up to five times the power density of today's best 800-volt converters, so rack space goes to processors rather than to power conversion.
Scales with the next chip generations: power density rises with switching frequency. Today's resonant designs typically run at around 1 MHz, and gain little by pushing much higher, because their transformer losses climb steeply with frequency. QPT's hard-switched approach keeps scaling into the multi-MHz range, so more power comes from raising the frequency rather than from redesigning or adding converters in parallel.
Lower system cost: the converter is designed to react to a sudden change in load within a single switching cycle, which sharply reduces the bulk capacitance power systems carry today to ride out rapid AI load swings. The saving outweighs the modest cost of the control electronics.
Built-in protection: the same cycle-by-cycle control is designed to shut the converter down within a single switching cycle if a fault occurs, before it can spread.
Compact, quiet and simple to build: running fast moves the electrical noise into a range that is cheap and easy to filter, the power stage is designed to sit inside the rack's cooling structure, which also shields it, and its transformer is a compact part that can be made with conventional methods.
No lock-in to one device generation: the architecture runs on proven 650-volt GaN available today, and is built to adopt higher-voltage parts, including 1200-volt GaN, as they mature and prove suitable.
What makes it different
Hard switching at very high frequency has long been considered impractical, because the switching losses climb as the frequency rises. QPT overcomes this with a combination of its own technologies working together: ZEST, a specialised transformer that stays efficient at very high frequencies; an energy-harvesting network that recovers most of the energy fast switching would otherwise waste; and a control system fast enough to adjust the converter on every switching cycle. No single piece is enough on its own. It is the combination that keeps the losses low as the frequency climbs, and that combination is unique to QPT.
The architecture is not tied to any one device. Two smaller modules are stacked so they share the 800 volts between them, each handling 400, which keeps the design comfortably within the rating of proven 650-volt GaN available today, while leaving it free to adopt higher-voltage parts as they mature. Their outputs are combined to deliver roughly 5 kW from a compact two-module stack. QPT already runs this high-frequency GaN approach at 1 MHz in its MicroDyno motor drive, around 100 times the frequency of a conventional drive, using the same high-frequency switching and control approach the qMicroModule IBC brings to data-centre power.
There is headroom well beyond this first design. QPT's qAttach™ die-attach moves heat far more effectively than the packaging used across the industry today, giving the same devices room to run at much higher power in later generations.
“Resonant converters run into a wall as you push them to higher frequencies and higher power. Ours keeps scaling: double the switching frequency and you roughly double the power density, with no redesign. That is the kind of scaling the next GPU generations will need, and it only works because we solve the transformer and the switching losses together.” - Rob Gwynne, co-founder and CTO, QPT
Working with partners
The rack architectures that ship in 2027 are being designed now, and the companies that move first will hold a lead their competitors cannot easily follow, because building this takes QPT's IP. QPT is opening a small number of lead design partnerships to semiconductor and power-system companies that want that lead. For semiconductor makers, it is a differentiated, high-value application for their GaN devices; for power-system designers, a route to leading power density without a redesign for every new processor generation.
QPT is already in discussions with leading companies in the sector. Semiconductor manufacturers and power-system designers working on next-generation AI data centre power can discuss the qMicroModule IBC under NDA at info@q-p-t.com.
About QPT
Established in Cambridge in 2019, with its power-electronics R&D in Linlithgow, Scotland, QPT is a fabless power-electronics company that enables gallium nitride (GaN) to switch at much higher frequencies than has previously been practical, without the overheating and interference problems that have held it back. Its technology spans packaging, gate drive, control and sensing, together with its ZEST transformer, and reaches from 1 MHz motor drives to 800-volt AI data centre power. Electric motors alone consume close to 45% of the world's electricity, and data-centre power demand is growing fast; QPT licenses its IP to semiconductor and module makers rather than selling finished hardware.
For more information contact info@q-p-t.com.