The Open Compute Project has accepted a white paper on Power Compute Effectiveness (PCE) authored by leaders at Airsys, a global provider of mission-critical cooling for data centers, AI, and high-performing digital infrastructure.

The announcement was made on October 8, 2026, and describes PCE as a first-of-its-kind metric designed to reveal how much provisioned power is allocated to IT compute long before data center construction begins.

The paper was authored by Airsys leaders, contributed to OCP, then peer reviewed and accepted under an open license.

A New Question About Data Center Power

As AI workloads push power density to unprecedented levels, data center operators are increasingly constrained not by physical floor space but by how provisioned electrical capacity is distributed within their facilities.

According to the white paper, a significant share of that power is allocated to cooling systems, electrical losses, and auxiliary loads rather than to IT racks.

This stranded capacity, which never reaches compute, remains invisible during early design, when it is easiest and least expensive to address, because existing industry metrics evaluate live operational performance rather than structural allocation. Airsys leaders authored PCE to close that gap.

The framework was co-authored by Airsys Founder and CEO Yunshui Chen, Chief Strategic Relations Officer Paul Quigley, and Product Marketing Manager Jake Roberts. It provides a consistent methodology to quantify available compute power at the blueprint stage.

"Operators have spent years optimizing for how power is used inside a data center using existing metrics like Power Use Effectiveness, or PUE. PCE asks a different question: how much of the power facility you've already paid for is structurally reaching compute in the first place," Chen said.

"We built this framework to give the industry a common, design-level way to answer that question, and we believe the answer should benefit every operator, not just Airsys customers."

How PCE Works

PCE measures the ratio of provisioned electrical capacity within a defined facility boundary that is available for IT compute, after accounting for the facility's redundancy requirements. Expressed as a dimensionless value between 0 and 1, the metric offers three key characteristics for data center design, according to the white paper.

First, PCE makes stranded capacity visible. It quantifies power allocated to cooling, distribution losses, and auxiliary loads directly from facility design documentation, prior to facility commissioning.

Second, it complements established operational metrics. While Power Usage Effectiveness measures operational energy efficiency during facility activity, PCE measures structural capacity allocation at the design level.

Third, the methodology is universal and vendor-neutral. It is scale-independent and applies across 20 MW colocation sites, 100 MW hyperscale campuses, and retrofit evaluations without favoring specific hardware architectures.

Industry Perspective

Quigley drew a distinction between PCE and the industry's most widely known efficiency metric. "PUE has served this industry well, but it looks in the rearview mirror at operational energy efficiency. PCE is meant to be the windshield," he said.

"A design team can take the facility design documents, starting with the single-line diagram, and determine how much of the provisioned power is allocated to compute and how much is allocated to cooling, electrical losses, and auxiliary load before a single watt is drawn. When power decides how big a data center can be, that's a question every operator should be able to answer on the drawing board."

Roberts emphasized the importance of early measurement across a facility's lifetime. "Energy stewardship starts long before a facility goes live. The path every kilowatt takes between the utility meter and the rack is more nuanced than most people realize," he said.

"PCE is a provisional metric, and the earlier we can calculate the power allocation for a facility, starting in the design phase or in the retrofit/upgrade stage, the better we can steward that power for its entire life. Having OCP peer review and accept the white paper opens the door to broader industry adoption, and I'm excited for a future where we can plan with metrics that help us prioritize power allocation and stewardship from the start."

Context: Compute Density and Grid Constraints

The white paper's acceptance comes as compute density climbs and grid interconnection constraints grow.

According to the announcement, PCE will be foundational to opening an industry conversation about how provisioned power is allocated at the design stage, giving operators, owners, and planners a common way to evaluate capacity allocation before construction begins.

The full white paper is titled "Power Compute Effectiveness (PCE)" and has been accepted under an open license by the Open Compute Project, allowing for broad industry access.

Airsys is headquartered in Woodruff, South Carolina, in North America, and describes itself as a global leader in mission-critical cooling for data centers, AI infrastructure, and high-performing digital infrastructure.

The acceptance of the paper by OCP follows its peer review process, and the company positions PCE as a design-stage complement to operational metrics rather than a replacement for them.

With AI-driven power demands reshaping how facilities are planned, the Airsys authors argue that the earlier power allocation can be calculated, whether in the design phase or during a retrofit or upgrade, the better operators can steward that power across the facility's entire life.

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