Surprisingly Useful AI Article Enhancements
Generative Ai is revolutionising banking, finance and insurance and only those who modernise fast will lead the charge.
The pace of innovation in the financial services sector has been unrelenting for the last decade. Yet the rate of change is destined to accelerate sharply due to generative Ai (GenAi), graphics processing units (GPUs), and the advent of the Ai data centre. Anyone that depends on IT infrastructure as a point of competitive differentiation in banking, credit unions, hedge funds, insurance firms, financial media and other financial services had better strap in for a period of heavy disruption over the next year or two.
Disruption Is Inevitable
As many financial services companies operate their own data centres, and those using colocation providers often build their own ‘cages’, a period of upgrades and modernisation is inevitable. Banking, financial services and insurance organisations that can harness Ai faster and more effectively are likely to dominate in the coming years. However, Ai workloads require a level of rack and data centre density that has never been seen before. GenAi and GPUs cannot run on the 5 kW racks typical of traditional data centres. Racks of 25 kW, 50 kW and beyond 100 kW are already emerging. Those in financial services must become familiar with such compute densities as they prepare for the Ai era.
An Ai optimised data centre, also known as an Ai Factory, necessitates a thorough overhaul of power and cooling infrastructure. Once density exceeds certain thresholds, air cooling alone becomes insufficient; liquid cooling must be introduced. The supporting energy infrastructure both inside and outside the data centre must be able to supply Ai servers with the power they demand. This transformation must extend across the entire financial services network – head office, branches, ATMs, remote access and mobile services.
All this must be done while upholding industry standards for compliance and security. Already, rampant and unchecked use of public (and thus potentially insecure) GenAi apps like ChatGPT are common in the enterprise. According to a University of Melbourne and KPMG study published around May 2025, nearly half of Australian employees (about 50 per cent) are misusing Ai tools in ways that contravene company policies – flagging a serious issue with internal Ai security practices.
Partner For Ai Success
IT innovation has never been this rapid. New server technology, GPUs, Ai models and applications, highly dense racks, next generation cybersecurity and compliance tools – each of these elements is required by an Ai data centre in financial services. All of it must be supported by paradigm shifts in power and cooling infrastructure. No one company can do it alone. Partnerships are essential for success.
Those in banking, finance and insurance are advised to find a partner that can help in several key areas:
Power distribution to the rack
Ai demands high density equipment racks supported by UPS with Dynamic Grid support or Dynamic Online mode.
Cooling
Ai applications need the latest in air and liquid cooling. Direct to chip (DtC) cooling, rear door heat exchangers (Vertiv CoolLoop RDHx), and next generation liquid cooling systems are entering the market to handle extreme GPU heat.
Advanced monitoring
Whether inside the central data centre or extending to branches, ATMs, offices and mobile services, advanced monitoring systems are vital to the implementation of Ai in finance. Those overseeing IT and cybersecurity operations must be able to see at a glance everything that is happening across their networks and systems down to the desktop, laptop, server and application level. They need remote access tools to troubleshoot issues, access controls to prevent breaches, and effective ways of monitoring the entire network as well as all power and cooling infrastructure. For insurance businesses, this broader digital transformation also includes the systems used to manage information and workflows, with management systems for insurance agencies helping streamline operations and improve efficiency.
Services
Not all banking and insurance firms possess large, skilled teams of IT specialists. But even those with excellent teams often delegate certain maintenance and service functions to external partners. Others may lack the resources to provide the level of responsiveness needed to fix issues in their offices, branches or ATM networks. The number of locations to service can sometimes reach into the thousands. Yet each one requires preventive maintenance and remedial work accompanied by rapid onsite response.
The ideal partner for all of this would cover each of these areas. Instead of dealing with one or two aspects, the best approach is to find a partner that provides solutions across the entire data centre infrastructure spectrum.
Andrew Whall, VP, Operations, Asia and ANZ General Manager, Vertiv
Last Updated on August 15, 2026 by Andrew Whall
