Who makes NiZn for AI data centers

Nickel-zinc is a smaller alternative in the UPS battery field, pitched at exactly the concern that lithium raises. The chemistry is water-based rather than organic-solvent- based, which changes the failure behaviour: it does not sustain thermal runaway the way lithium can, so the fire, ventilation and separation requirements around it look more like lead-acid than like lithium. The trade is energy density and, more practically, market position. Nickel-zinc gives up capacity per unit of volume against lithium, which matters less than it sounds for a UPS that only needs to bridge to a generator start, and much more for anything requiring long runtime. Against lead-acid it is far more compact and delivers high power well, which suits the short, hard discharge a UPS actually performs. The honest framing of this part is a single-supplier chemistry competing against two established ones, in a market where the operator's risk calculus is doing most of the work. It gets specified where the safety case dominates: sites where a lithium room would trigger code requirements the owner does not want, or where the insurer has an opinion. What to look for is exactly that — whether a deployment was chosen on safety grounds or on cost — and the supply concentration, since a chemistry with one meaningful producer is a different procurement risk from one with many.