BAK Power, in collaboration with UK-based battery materials specialist Echion Technologies, has announced the development of a new ultra-high-power (UHP) 2170 cylindrical cell tailored specifically for battery backup units (BBUs) in AI-driven data centers and other mission-critical power applications.

The new cell leverages BAK's mature tabless high-power architecture and integrates Echion's proprietary XNO® anode technology. The combination delivers symmetric 10C+ charge and discharge capability, a cycle life that is an order of magnitude longer than existing UHP cells, along with low internal resistance, enhanced thermal stability, and a robust safety profile. Engineering samples for BBU integration are expected to be available to customers by the end of 2026.

Why it matters: The product is engineered to close a critical performance gap in next-generation high-power-density, liquid-cooled BBU side-mount architectures — particularly in ±400V module designs — where conventional 2170 cells have struggled to keep pace.

According to BAK Power, the new 2170 cells deliver four distinct advantages that directly address the operational realities of modern AI infrastructure:

• True symmetric design. While existing high-power 2170 cells excel at discharge, their charge rates are often constrained, forcing system designers to over-engineer around the imbalance. BAK's 10C+ sustained charge/discharge capability eliminates this bottleneck, maximising usable rack space and reducing system oversizing.

• Order-of-magnitude cycle-life improvement. The XNO® chemistry is built to withstand the frequent, high-rate charge/discharge cycles typical of AI BBU duty cycles. Compared to conventional NMC-based UHP 2170 cells, the new design delivers a significantly lower levelised cost of storage (LCOS) over the asset's lifetime.

• Inherently safer by design. In abuse testing, the XNO®-based cells outperform standard graphite-based UHP benchmarks. The intrinsic safety characteristics of the XNO® chemistry make the cell particularly well-suited for server-adjacent BBU deployments, where thermal runaway and fault tolerance are non-negotiable.

• Optimised for data centre thermal environments. The low-impedance cell design, combined with XNO®'s thermal resilience, enables full performance delivery even under the elevated ambient and rack-side temperatures typical of AI-driven, high-density data centres — conditions in which conventional UHP 2170 chemistries often experience derating or accelerated ageing.

Industry observers note that evolving workload profiles are fundamentally reshaping power architectures inside data centres, and incumbent UHP cell chemistries are struggling to keep up. By upgrading the cell materials, refining the tabless manufacturing process, and applying Echion's XNO® anode, BAK Power aims to deliver a high-power cell that is purpose-built for this new reality — a move that the company describes as the core motivation behind the project.