iGenius Launches One of the World’s Largest Sovereign AI Data Centres Leveraging Vertiv Infrastructure, NVIDIA Accelerated Computing and Omniverse
This article has been supplied and will be available for a limited time only on this website.
Vertiv (NYSE: VRT), a global provider of critical digital infrastructure, today announced a groundbreaking collaboration with NVIDIA and renowned AI pioneer iGenius to deploy Colosseum, one of the world’s largest NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputers with NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchips. Set to deploy in 2025 in Italy, Colosseum will redefine the digital landscape through a first-of-its-kind sovereign AI data centre for regulated workloads.
Designed to address the demands of highly regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and public administration, Colosseum will embody a fusion of transformative computational power, energy efficiency, and data sovereignty, while balancing stringent data security requirements.
Colosseum, a NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, is the latest advancement in a long-standing collaboration between Vertiv and NVIDIA. It is strategically positioned in southern Italy to address regional government requirements, marking a significant milestone in Europe’s AI landscape.
“Harnessing the power of NVIDIA's cutting-edge accelerated computing and Vertiv's innovative infrastructure expertise, Colosseum stands as a testament to the transformative potential of sovereign AI,” said Uljan Sharka, CEO of iGenius. “We’re demonstrating how modular systems and software-specific infrastructure enable a new era of mission-critical AI.”
Modular by Design. Engineered for Efficiency.
Colosseum combines Vertiv's infrastructure management expertise, NVIDIA accelerated computing, and the NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint for AI factory design and operations. The deployment will leverage Vertiv’s 360AI reference architecture infrastructure platform for data centre power and cooling that is designed for the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 , which was co-developed with NVIDIA and released in late 2024.
This modular and scalable system positions iGenius to deploy one of the fastest hyperscale AI supercomputers, and one of the largest to support sovereign AI.
Vertiv has also extended its reference design library on its AI Hub with the co-developed data centre power and cooling design for NVIDIA GB300 NVL72. By staying one GPU generation ahead, Vertiv enables customers to plan infrastructure before silicon lands, with deployment-ready designs that anticipate increased rack power densities and repeatable templates for AI factories at scale.
“The unit of compute is no longer the chip — it’s the system, the AI Factory,” said Karsten Winther, president of Vertiv, EMEA. “Through our collaboration with NVIDIA and visionary AI player iGenius, we are proving the efficiency and system-level maturity of delivering the data centre as a unit of compute, unlocking rapid adoption of AI-native power and cooling infrastructure as a catalyst for AI at scale.”
Simulate with NVIDIA Omniverse. Deliver with Speed.
“AI is reshaping the data centre landscape, demanding new levels of scale, efficiency and adaptability for global AI factories,” said Charlie Boyle, vice president of DGX platforms at NVIDIA. “With physically-based digital twins enabled by NVIDIA Omniverse technologies and Vertiv’s modular design for the iGenius DGX SuperPOD data centre, Colosseum sets a new standard for building supercomputers for the era of AI.”
Colosseum was co-designed as a physically accurate digital twin developed with NVIDIA Omniverse technologies, enabling real-time collaboration between Vertiv, iGenius and NVIDIA, to accelerate system-level decisions and compress the design-to-deploy cycle. The Omniverse Blueprint enables real-time simulations, allowing engineers to test and refine designs instantly, rather than waiting for lengthy simulation processes, reducing simulation times from months to hours. Vertiv manufacturing and factory integration processes reduce deployment time by up to 50% compared to traditional data centre builds.
This collaborative 3D design process validated the entire infrastructure stack, enabling predictive modelling of thermal load, electrical flow, and site layout — for 132kW liquid-cooled racks to modular power systems — before a single module was built.
Designed with Intelligence. Unified by Software.
Vertiv’s AI-ready prefabricated modular data centre solution is designed, manufactured, delivered, installed and commissioned by Vertiv. It includes power, cooling, management, monitoring, service and maintenance offerings, with power and cooling capacity supporting up to 132kW/rack initially, with an ability to scale up as required for future designs. The building shell integrates prefabricated white space inside while deploying full modular grey space outside. This approach offers exceptional scalability and energy efficiency, transforming the way data centres are built and deployed.
Colosseum will leverage NVIDIA Mission Control for data centre operations and orchestration and Vertiv™ Unify to simplify and synchronise building management for AI factories. Vertiv Unify provides:
● Real-time orchestration across power, cooling, and compute
● Digital twin synchronisation for closed-loop optimisation
● AI-ready capabilities that support autonomous decision-making
Through its integration of NVIDIA Omniverse technologies, Vertiv Unify enables real-time updates between physical systems and digital models — allowing predictive maintenance, what-if simulations, and scenario testing before operational risk occurs.
The Blueprint for AI Factories Globally
Colosseum is more than a data centre. It’s the template for scalable, repeatable, sovereign AI factories. By combining cloud-scale density, local data control, and modular deployment, it signals the next phase of AI: where inference must be secure, fast, compliant, and distributed.
This is not a one-off project — it’s a reference point. iGenius is building a blueprint with Colosseum designed to be repeated globally, with Vertiv and NVIDIA aligned on future platform support, including DGX GB300 systems and beyond. The future of sovereign AI is no longer theoretical — it’s being built now.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation