When 51mm is all you need: Supersized 21-inch racks to become standard for enterprise and cloud service providers by end of the decade, displacing the venerable 19-inch format

Racks of servers inside a data center.

• Dell and HPE drive shift toward modular DC-MHS and 21-inch rack adoption
• AI systems benefit from wider racks enabling better airflow cooling and power capacity
• Cloud providers standardize on 21-inch Open Rack as demand for AI servers surges

New research has claimed data center operators are beginning to move away from traditional 19-inch EIA-310 racks in favor of wider 21-inch Open Rack designs.