Samsung SDI Takes Third Straight CES Innovation Award for UPS Battery

Samsung SDI will pick up its third consecutive CES Innovation Award in as many years, this time for a prismatic battery built to keep data centers running when the grid fails. The Consumer Technology Association announced the honors on the 9th, and the company confirmed on the 10th that its SDI U8A3-UPS solution won in the enterprise technology category at CES 2027, which opens in Las Vegas in January.

What does the product actually do?

A UPS — uninterruptible power supply — is the battery system that steps in with emergency power for critical facilities such as data centers the moment an unexpected outage hits. Samsung SDI's entry was recognized on three fronts: ultra-high output, high energy capacity, and fire safety.

The technical story sits in the cell chemistry. The U8A3-UPS uses prismatic cells based on lithium manganese oxide, and that choice pays off in footprint. The solution improves space efficiency by 33% compared with existing products, meaning operators can hold a site's backup capacity with roughly a third fewer battery units installed.

There's an AI angle too, and it's practical. The battery can supply backup power when AI computing triggers sudden spikes in electricity demand, preventing the server failures and data loss that follow a brownout mid-training run. For anyone sizing power infrastructure around GPU clusters, that's the spec that matters.

How did it prove fire safety?

Certification did the talking. The battery recently became the first in the world to meet all evaluation criteria in a large-scale indoor fire test conducted by UL Solutions, the global safety certification body. Samsung SDI described the result as demonstrating outstanding fire safety — and for an industry still nursing memories of lithium incidents in dense indoor environments, a clean pass at scale carries real weight in procurement decisions.

The test matters because UPS installations live inside buildings, next to the very servers they protect. A first-of-its-kind full pass gives facility engineers a documented answer to the fire-marshal question that has slowed battery retrofits in occupied data center space.

How does this fit Samsung SDI's CES record?

The award run started fast and hasn't broken. Since first exhibiting at CES 2025, Samsung SDI has now won an Innovation Award three years running, a streak the company says cements its global technology leadership.

Last year set a high bar: the ultra-high-output cylindrical battery SDI 25U-Power took a Best of Innovation Award, while the company's No Thermal Propagation safety technology picked up an Innovation Award of its own. This year's win moves the spotlight from cylindrical cells and safety tech to prismatic form factor applied to enterprise power backup.

For practitioners, the takeaway is straightforward. A major cell maker is now competing directly in the UPS segment with a prismatic LMO product that claims 33% better space efficiency and a unique UL fire-test credential. Data center operators evaluating backup refreshes in 2027 will likely see this solution quoted alongside incumbent lead-acid and lithium alternatives — with the certification record doing much of the sales work.