Primer on 800VDC and implications for Electricals companies

Investor debate has been increasingly focused on NVIDIA's 800VDC architecture and the race among electrical OEMs to develop the necessary product portfolios, notably solid-state transformers (SSTs). This report outlines the importance of these technologies, maps the current competitive landscape for 800VDC electrical equipment, and reviews the positioning, development efforts and recent progress of companies across Goldman Sachs' Electricals coverage. The transition to 800VDC power distribution is driven by the need to resolve the physical and electrical bottlenecks of scaling next-generation AI workloads, where rack power densities are surging from tens of kilowatts to over 1MW per rack, enabling higher power efficiency, up to 45% reduction in copper mass and better management of volatile load swings. Key products include upstream MV UPS and rack-adjacent sidecars for hybrid set-ups, SSTs or MV rectifiers, high-efficiency DC-DC converters, solid-state breakers and advanced energy stor