If you grew up watching Star Trek, you remember the command: “Warp speed.” The ship didn’t gradually accelerate. It jumped into an entirely different class of motion.

That is exactly what is happening to data center density right now.

In 1988, my friend Ken Patchett was working at Microsoft. At that time, the average rack inside Microsoft facilities drew roughly 1 kW per rack. One kilowatt. You could practically cool it with a box fan and optimism.

Fast forward nearly four decades, and we are operating at warp speed. According to the 10th anniversary edition of the AFCOM State of the Data Center report, average rack density has now climbed to 27 kW per rack, up from 16 kW last year and just 6.1 kW in the earliest edition of the study.

From 1 kW to 27 kW.

That is not a tuning adjustment. That is a propulsion system upgrade.

And here is the real thesis: every data center will become an AI data center. The only question is how fast they can get there.

The uncomfortable follow up question is this: how many are actually ready?

Today’s facilities no longer resemble the raised floor environments of the virtualization era. In many cases, they look more like energy campuses. Industry research suggests scaling global data center infrastructure may require well over $1 trillion in investment, and AI related demand could drive hundreds of gigawatts of new capacity this decade. In some regions, operators are effectively functioning as power producers.

We are not adding servers. We are redesigning the energy backbone of the digital economy.

The Acceleration of Density

The 2026 State of the Data Center report makes the trajectory unmistakable. Average rack density has reached 27 kW per rack, representing a 69 percent year-over-year increase. Seventy-four percent of respondents plan to deploy AI-capable infrastructure, up from 64 percent last year. Seventy-two percent expect AI workloads to significantly increase capacity requirements. AI is no longer an innovation track. It is the primary design assumption.

Consider a fully configured NVIDIA DGX H100. A single system can draw 10 kW or more at the node level. Stack those systems into a rack and the thermal profile changes dramatically.

Now look at the NVIDIA Blackwell B200 platform. Higher performance. Higher power density. Greater heat flux at the silicon level.

And then the roadmap. At GTC, Jensen Huang outlined rack scale systems pushing toward 600 kW per rack. NVIDIA’s Rubin Ultra NVL576 rack is expected to approach that 600 kW threshold in the second half of 2027.

Six hundred kilowatts in a single rack. That is not warp one. That is warp nine.

If your facility was designed for 10 to 15 kW per rack just five years ago, you are not slightly behind. You are operating on a different star chart.

The Density Dilemma

Physics does not negotiate. Well… maybe it does with Star Trek. But we’re not quite there yet.

Air has limits. Once racks move beyond 40 kW and toward 50 kW and beyond, traditional airflow strategies struggle to keep up. Containment helps. Variable speed fans help. But convection alone cannot dissipate extreme thermal loads indefinitely.

The 2026 survey confirms the industry’s response. Thirty six percent of respondents have already implemented liquid cooling, and another 28 percent plan adoption within 12 to 24 months. The most commonly cited approaches include:

• Rear door heat exchangers at 37 percent
• Immersion cooling at 37 percent (two-phase and single)

Liquid is no longer exotic. It is inevitable.

Direct to chip cooling brings coolant closer to the source of heat. Rear door heat exchangers extend the life of existing air based designs. Immersion changes the paradigm entirely by submerging hardware in thermally efficient dielectric fluids.

The Density Dilemma is this: AI workloads are scaling faster than most facilities can adapt. Operators are running out of cooling headroom before they run out of space. The bottleneck is no longer square footage. It is thermal rejection and power distribution.

And that brings us to a provocative statement.

The Myth of kW per Rack

At the recent Schneider Electric Innovation Summit, Rob Roy, CEO of Switch, called measuring density purely in kW per rack a myth.

It is a bold statement, but it forces an important conversation.

Modern AI racks are not simple enclosures. They are integrated compute platforms with liquid manifolds, sidecar power shelves, and high bandwidth networking fabrics. In future designs, some will approach megawatt scale.

Rob has noted that Switch is on a path to consume roughly a third of Nevada’s power, yet power rates for residents went down. He has even stated that if they reverted sufficient power back into the Nevada grid, they could effectively power the entire Las Vegas Strip.

The takeaway is scale and integration. kW per rack measures load. It does not measure value, efficiency, or compute output.

Moving Beyond kW per Rack

So what replaces it?

We need new metrics that align infrastructure with value. Consider the following:

·      Tokens per Watt. How many AI tokens can you process per unit of energy? This directly ties compute output to energy efficiency.

·      Compute per Square Foot. Density in terms of actual performance delivered per footprint.

·      Revenue per Megawatt. For colocation and AI service providers, this becomes a critical economic metric.

·      Thermal Rejection Efficiency. How effectively does your facility move heat from silicon to atmosphere or reuse?

·      Carbon per Compute Unit. As sustainability pressures intensify, performance normalized to emissions becomes essential.

In short, we need to measure what matters, not just what is easy.

Are We Ready?

The data tells a clear story.

·      Average rack density is 27 kW and rising.

·      Liquid cooling adoption is accelerating.

·      AI deployment is becoming foundational.

But many facilities were never designed for 100 kW racks, let alone 600 kW platforms.

The Density Dilemma is not about whether AI is a bubble. It is about whether your infrastructure can evolve fast enough to support the next generation of compute.

We are at a structural inflection point.

The next wave of data centers will not look like the last decade. They will look more like energy aware, liquid cooled, AI optimized production facilities. The organizations that plan holistically across power, cooling, and compute architecture will lead. Those that retrofit reactively will struggle.

This conversation does not end here.

We will be continuing the dialogue around density, power strategy, and AI ready design at Data Center World 2026 in Washington DC. If you are serious about navigating the Density Dilemma, join us.

Registration details are available here:

The future will not wait for legacy thinking. The only question is whether we design for what is coming or remain anchored to what used to work.

Right before the year turned, reports surfaced that SoftBank was in talks to acquire DigitalBridge. Four billion dollars. Before most of us had even closed out our end of year budgets. That is not how hype behaves. That is how conviction behaves.

It was a fitting way to enter 2026, because it perfectly reflects what many of us have been feeling for months. Capital is moving faster than headlines can keep up with. The scale of what is being built is accelerating. And the role of the data center is shifting from quiet infrastructure to a foundational economic engine.

Recently, a post of mine was featured on LinkedIn News. The post examined what it really takes to succeed in the AI and data center industry right now. I keep coming back to a simple idea.

You need two things. Power and bravery.

By 2030, our industry is on track to require more than 200 gigawatts of power. That number still stops people in their tracks. But the clearest signal of what is coming is not just energy demand. It is where the money is going.

In 2025, according to S&P Global, global AI-driven data center dealmaking surpassed 61 billion dollars, setting a new all-time record. That happened while investors were actively questioning AI valuations and infrastructure costs. Capital does not move like that on hype alone. It moves when long-term conviction is already forming.

From that post, here is my big prediction:

In 2026, more data center capacity will be deployed or under contract than in all previous years combined.

I’m making this prediction not because demand is suddenly rising. But because the capital committed over the past two years has not yet materialized into steel, concrete, and electrons. We’re seeing how vast amounts of land is being secured, massive power agreements are being negotiated, and entire energy ecosystems are forming around AI infrastructure.

I really believe that most forecasts are still behind the curve.

This is not a feeling. It is supported by what we are seeing across global markets. According to McKinsey, data center demand tied to AI workloads is expected to grow at more than 30 percent annually through the end of the decade. The International Energy Agency has warned that electricity demand from data centers could double by 2030. Meanwhile, global infrastructure funds are sitting on record dry powder, much of it earmarked specifically for digital infrastructure.

The capacity wave is coming. Fast.

And with that, I have a very special preview for our readers…

A Sneak Peek: State of the Data Center 2026

As the author of the upcoming AFCOM State of the Data Center 2026 report, I cannot give everything away yet. But I can share a few findings that strongly reinforce where this industry is heading.

Let’s start with new builds. The upcoming AFCOM report shows that the average number of new data center facilities organizations expect to build will increase from one today to six over the next three years. That is a sixfold increase in new facilities planning, not over a decade, but within a single planning cycle. This aligns directly with the capital flows we are seeing across hyperscale, colocation, and enterprise environments.

Now look at rack density. Our findings saw the single largest jump in average rack densities, with the mean now sitting at 27 kW per rack and climbing quickly. Nearly 70 percent of respondents expect density to increase further over the next 12 to 36 months, with liquid cooling and airflow optimization leading the charge. The AI implication is clear. It is reshaping the physical design of the data center.

Power strategy is shifting as well. Our report shows that 66 percent of respondents are considering or already deploying on site power generation, including microgrids and localized generation.

Just a note… This is not about sustainability marketing. It is about resilience, speed to market, and control in a constrained grid environment. Industry wide, AI focused, single-building facilities, can consume between 50 and 100 megawatts each, with some campuses now planned well north of a gigawatt.

Finally, let’s talk about the big spending. CAPEX is going up.

The majority of respondents reported increased capital expenditures year over year, driven primarily by facility expansion, power infrastructure, and AI capable systems. Based on trends that we’re seeing, this is not incremental investment. This is structural investment.

If you want the full story, you will need to join me for the AFCOM State of the Data Center 2026 webinar on January 22.

You can register here: AFCOM - Advancing IT and Data Center Infrastructure Professionals

That is where we will connect these dots live and dig into what they mean for your organization.

The Top Five Data Center Strategies for 2026

I want to leave everyone with some action-based steps to succeed in what will undoubtedly be a wild year for our industry. Based on everything I am seeing across the industry, here are the five strategies that will define success in 2026.

1. Power partnerships, not just power agreements

Access to power is now the single biggest barrier to entry. The operators pulling ahead are forming partnerships with utilities, energy developers, and on site generation providers. These partnerships unlock creativity, reduce timelines, and enable differentiated energy strategies. Power is no longer a line item. It is a relationship.

2. Community engagement and policy leadership

Lobbying and community work will be one of the toughest challenges facing our industry. It is also one of the biggest opportunities. NIMBY sentiment and fear thrive in the absence of information. We need to be clear about our intentions, transparent about our impacts, and proactive in addressing community concerns. The operators who earn trust will build faster.

3. Infrastructure beyond GPUs

The bottlenecks ahead are not just compute. Power gear, racks, cooling equipment, RAM, and storage are all under pressure. Leaders are working with integrated supply chain partners to ensure the entire system can be delivered together. AI infrastructure is an orchestration problem, not a component problem.

4. Safety and security at higher densities

For the first time ever, human threats ranked as the number one security concern, ahead of ransomware, in the State of the Data Center 2026 report. At the same time, more power than ever is flowing into each rack, alongside new cooling technologies and unfamiliar equipment. Safety, training, and physical security must evolve in parallel with density.

5. Rethink metrics and design philosophy

Traditional kW per rack metrics are becoming meaningless for AI. What matters now is workload output per unit of power and cooling. Leaders are shifting toward utilization, throughput, and efficiency metrics. They are planning differently for training versus inference. They are integrating telemetry from GPUs, cooling loops, and power systems. The winners will sell outcomes, not square footage.

Final Thoughts

It feels like we just discovered oil, but have not invented the engine yet.

2026 will be the year when plans turn into steel, capital turns into capacity, and predictions turn into reality. More data center capacity will be deployed or under contract than ever before. I stand by that.

Power and bravery must go together. Guided by responsibility. Fueled by curiosity. Executed with intent.

I truly believe that this is our moment to build something meaningful. 

-- Bill Kleyman, Executive Chair, Data Center Programs, Informa; Co-Founder and CEO, Apolo.us

When the idea of a monthly column was brought up to me earlier in the year, I was all for it and, honestly, quite excited. But when it came time to actually sit down and write this, I must have stared at a blank page for at least 30 minutes.

It’s not that I didn’t know what to say. Because there is so much going on , I wasn’t even sure where to start…

What a wild moment to be in the data center industry. It sort of feels like we are everywhere right now. Honestly, that is a good thing and a bad thing. More than ever before, mainstream audiences are talking about data centers, energy, AI, and all the things we have been quietly building for decades. And more than ever before, it is absolutely critical for us to be positive voices for this industry. That is where I will need all of your help.

Before we get started, I want to give a huge shoutout to the brilliantly talented Wendy Schuchart, Association Manager at AFCOM. It is an honor to work alongside her to bring this newsletter to life.

Over the past couple of months, I have basically been living on an airplane. Conferences. Data centers. Partner meetings. Factory tours. Firesides. Keynotes. If there was a badge to scan, I probably scanned it. Along the way, I filled my notebook with trends, numbers, and conversations that perfectly capture the speed and intensity of our industry right now.

So for our very first AFCOM newsletter article, I want to share those notes with you and explain what they tell us about the future of power, capacity, resiliency, and the evolving role of data centers in an AI driven world.

The Rob Roy Briefing: Power, Nuclear, and the Myth of kW Per Rack

Let’s start in Nevada, where Rob Roy made something absolutely clear. AI is not being driven by hobbyists in garages. It is being driven by multi-trillion dollar companies with customers, revenue, and real demand. Nvidia and Microsoft dropping billions of dollars into Anthropic says it all. While some might say it’s a bubble, I really don’t think it’s headed that way. Just look at the latest Nvidia earnings.

This is not the dot-com bubble where we built networks with no clients. This time, we have the clients, and they want compute at a scale the grid has never seen.

A few big numbers stood out to me. Switch now consumes a third of Nevada’s power. You read that right … A third of the power of an entire state.

And yet, in the state of Nevada, residential electric bills still went down last year. Rob called out what many of us have been saying quietly for a while. When designed correctly, data centers can stabilize the grid and support local energy markets. We can absorb excess at night, shave peaks, and become partners rather than villains.

Then we talked about nuclear. Switch’s partnership with Oklo is one of the most fascinating developments in our space. And let’s be clear, Switch is not the only one going nuclear.

Rob’s message was simple. There is no future for AI without nuclear energy. The curve ahead of us is steep, and GPUs will be working full-time… for a long time. There is no world where this level of compute happens without adding clean baseload generation.

And now my favorite part. And I anticipate where we might hear a bit of feedback from you. Which is always welcome, of course. Rob, in his opinion, called out one of the biggest myths in the industry. The kW per rack number. We all hear some operators quoting impossible densities for marketing slides. But the reality is that a future proofed AI rack can easily pull hundreds of kilowatts, and in some cases, Switch is designing for up to 1.7 megawatts. These are not racks anymore. These are industrial loads. And, you know what? I think he’s on to something. We’re legit just a few years away from completely reimagining what a data center rack even looks like.

What it means for us: education. Rob said he is going to Washington to explain this story, and we should all be doing the same. Maybe not Washington, but your voice is critical in your communities to make sure people know what we do. Data centers are not the enemy of the grid. We are a cornerstone for its modernization.

Schneider Electric Innovation Summit: The Rise of the AI Factory

While at the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit, the message was similar but from a different angle. Schneider showed off some seriously impressive AI factory designs, including racks pushing 142 kW and beyond. Liquid cooling was everywhere, and I’m sure you’re not surprised. This is the new normal. Digitization, automation, and electrification are merging into a single ecosystem. One that is going to stretch the American grid to its limits.

A big stat that stuck with me: By 2030, the data center industry is projected to consume upwards of 200 gigawatts of power, a scale of demand unlike anything we have ever seen. Can you imagine … 200GW of power for just data centers alone.

This acceleration is driven by AI training clusters, high density compute, and the massive buildout of digital infrastructure happening across every region. At this pace, power availability becomes the defining limiting factor for growth, shaping where facilities can be built, how fast they can go live, and how operators plan for long term resilience.

Hitting 200 gigawatts requires new thinking around generation, grid integration, microgrids, and Energy Parks because the traditional utility model cannot keep up with AI scale demands. This is the moment where innovation around power is no longer optional. It is mission critical for the future of our entire industry.

Translation for us: the biggest players in the industrial world are preparing for a world where energy is scarce, data center loads are massive, and predictive digital twins are not optional. They are mandatory. The grid is becoming omnidirectional, EVs are becoming storage assets, and the future data center will be both a load and a generator.

And here’s the future-looking statement on all of this: AI will run these ecosystems long before operators ever see an alarm.

AIDC Arizona: Crusoe, Stargate, and the New Meaning of Resiliency

Alright team, this panel was beyond cool. Let’s talk about the AIDC conference in Arizona, where Mark Milliet of Crusoe walked us through one of the wildest projects I have ever seen. The Stargate campus in Abilene started as two 100 megawatt buildings. It is now eight buildings totaling 1.2 gigawatts. For perspective, that is the size of a small city. And they built the entire thing in eighteen months.

One of the most innovative parts of the design is the star configuration. Each 480 thousand square foot building extends out from a central spine. This geometry is not just for convenience. It is specifically designed to overcome fiber constraints. By centralizing the network core and branching compute buildings outward, Crusoe minimizes long-haul fiber runs, reduces latency, and avoids the bandwidth bottlenecks that would normally come with a campus of this scale.

[Image: Crusoe]

Everything radiates back into a tight, controlled core where fiber can be managed, protected, and scaled without fighting the sprawl of traditional layouts.

Now here is the part I want everyone to really hear. Only twenty percent of the workload requires generator backup. Just twenty percent. And that twenty percent is the network core. Not the GPUs. The GPUs can ride through because of the design, the power architecture, and the thermal storage. This is a fundamentally different approach to resiliency and one that we will see a lot more of as densities climb.

Future iterations of Stargate will shift to 800 volt DC power distribution and vertical designs because horizontal land is running out. They are aiming for 200 megawatts delivered in fifteen months. That is the new level of speed and intensity we are all competing with.

What it means for us: resiliency is changing. The idea that every single circuit needs full generator backup is fading. We are entering a world where we protect the network core, maintain thermal stability, and let the AI racks ride through short events. It lowers cost, it reduces emissions, and it accelerates delivery.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for sticking around … If this feels like a lot, that is because it is. The world is electrifying. AI is accelerating. Demand is rising faster than supply. And our industry is at the center of every major technology conversation happening on the planet today.

But here is the part that makes me incredibly proud to be part of AFCOM. We are the people who build the things that make the future possible. We are the ones designing high density racks, onboarding nuclear partnerships, modernizing the grid, rethinking resiliency, and delivering gigawatt campuses in under two years.

This newsletter is going to be our place to talk about all of it. The good parts. The stressful parts. The surprising parts. And the parts that make us laugh because only data center people would ever understand them.

So welcome to our very first edition. I am thrilled you are here. And I cannot wait to see what we build together next.

Let’s get to work, team.

President of AFCOM's Greater Minnesota Chapter. We sat down with Thom (virtually) and peppered him with questions.

What’s your favorite AFCOM experience or story?

"I absolutely love our annual golf tournament. I started the event 10 years ago because AFCOM is a place to network with other industry professionals and what better way to do that than a golf tournament!  For the last 8 years we’ve sold out registration and we’ve been receiving enough sponsorships to provide scholarships to the next generation of local data center experts!"

What is the best part of your job?

"The engineer in me loves working through challenging problems to provide clients the resilient data centers they need. The coworker in me loves working with newer staff to discuss the intricate systems needed to power and cool data centers while sharing the mistakes I’ve made over the years!"

Who are the most important internal partners you have professionally? Why?

"Our data center business unit at Dunham is a close knit group each with decades of mechanical and electrical experience. Working together in an option nature allows us to share experiences, perform honest QC checks and discuss new technologies with an open mind on how they can benefit us."

What’s the best vacation you’ve taken and what made it so awesome?

"I’ve been very fortunate to grow up in a family that loves to travel and continued that tradition with my wife and kids. From European vacations, to an educational trip to China, to family vacations in Northern Minnesota to fish in the quiet, I love the experience every vacation brings. What makes travel so fun for me these days is to watch people experience history for the first time.  Stepping into a huge cathedral, walking the Great Wall or setting foot on the beaches of Normandy are all very humbling experiences to help us understand where we’ve been and what’s important in life." 

Talk about your journey to your career today – how did you get this awesome job?

"I’ve always loved the construction industry and seeing how buildings come together. In high school and college I took HVAC classes and worked at HVAC design firms and I’ve enjoyed it ever since. My family makes fun of me for looking at the ceiling first in every building I ever enter but when you love what you do, it’s hard not to."

What’s the biggest trend you’re seeing in the data center space, outside of AI?

"Because of lead times, project size and staffing shortages, the biggest trend we see hitting almost all data center types is pre-fabrication. While this isn’t new, it has become the norm with pipe racks, cable trays, electrical rooms, and chiller plants. There are so many more contractors performing this work, so many more manufacturers offering this product and data centers of all sizes are seeing its benefits. When things are built in a flat, well lit factory, the quality increases and the people on site working on top of each other is reduces."

What do you think the data center will look like in five years?

Hyperscalers will continue to grow, new colocation providers will be created and offer the missing smaller footprints and enterprise data centers will be implementing small to medium sized AI deployments into their existing overbuilt data centers. At the end of the day a data center is still a room full of computers!!

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever been given?

"Listen. Be yourself. Communicate with everyone. Be a friend not a coworker or client"

Have you had any jobs outside of IT? If so, doing what?

"In high school I worked at a landscape nursery but ever since I’ve been in the HVAC design industry and don’t see me doing anything else for many years!"

Where is the next big data center region?

"Minnesota!!"

What is a project or initiative that you’re especially proud of in your current role? What was the impact of that project?

"Our MN chapter of AFCOM has been doing more and more outreach with Hennepin Technical College and the local workforce. It has been great to see their data center and facilities programs grown including an on-site data center for hands on rack and stack education. Our chapter has been providing scholarships and student outreach to continue supporting the next generation of experts to serve the increasing data center demand. 

In addition to student outreach, I’ve been meeting with city councils, mayors, legislators and communities to discuss what data centers are and how they benefit the people of Minnesota. I’ve enjoyed sharing my experience to debunk myths and have real conversations about these buildings that as an industry we’ve kept secret for way too long."

What does your typical day at work look like right now?

"Buried in emails!! Each day brings new challenges and successes.  From project calls to construction site visits to commissioning tasks to client calls to internal mentorship meetings, no day is the same."

What inspires you to come into work every day?

"I love what I do. Each project is different, each state we work in is different, and each owner is different and I enjoy working with the team to create the right solutions. Even when things get stressful, overwhelming or the to-do list grows to long, I know I am supported by a great team and wonderful clients."

If you could design a leadership workshop, what would you want participants to learn or walk away with?

"How to recruit volunteers

How to make company paperwork easier – taxes, insurance, etc.

How to obtain feedback from members and shape your chapter to fit their needs"

What is a non-technical skill that you use more than you ever expected?

"Communication. As an introverted engineer I’m supposed to be hiding in my cubical not giving presentations across the country!

What tips would you share with your fellow AFCOM members?

"Volunteer your time to make your local chapter better. Because each chapter event and presentation takes countless hours of planning, more hands make light work. You don’t have to give 20 hours a week but volunteer to do things you enjoy and you’re good at to make AFCOM benefit your goals."

A quick tour of the landscape is interesting:

• There are over 10,000 data centers in the World.
• According to the IEA, we consume 445 exajoules of energy per year and will continue to grow until at least 2050.
• In the United States, data centers are slated to go from 3% of energy consumption to 10% by 2030.
• The hyperscaler companies have in total suggested that they’ll spend in excess of $500 Billion on data centers.
• Significant issues remain: energy, water, land acquisition, environmental concerns, cost, and need for innovation.

Against this background, it is important to continue to mainstream the data center discussion and to continue to spur innovation.

Treatises can be written from any of the angles mentioned.  From the perspective of energy, it is clear that with the exponential growth in electricity consumption, driven partially by AI and cryptocurrency- slated to be at a minimum 3.3% annually, that the data center conversation is paramount.  After all, data centers currently consume approximately 3% of US electricity, but that number is expected to triple over the next decade.

Houston, we have a problem.

We need innovations in data centers -- more efficient chips, better cooling apparatus, and so on. We also need a step-change in our energy stack, moving towards efficient energy sources like nuclear fission and the Holy Grail, nuclear fusion.

These are the discussions that we need to have as a community.  That is why Data Center World 2025 is a necessary stop on the circuit. 

I’m excited about my panel, but even more about the community, content, and commerce possibilities at the show.  See you there.

We’re thrilled to announce that Wendy Shuchart has joined the AFCOM team as our new Association Manager! Wendy brings a wealth of industry knowledge from her time as Editor-in-Chief of Data Center Knowledge and ITPro Today, two of Informa’s leading news sites. Here's a little Q&A so you can get to know Wendy better.

Tell us a little about yourself:

It's no secret that data centers – including those running new AI programs – consume lots and lots of electricity. But according to the CEO of digital infrastructure company DigitalBridge, the situation is much more dire than most in the industry believe.

"Power is really the constraining factor. And that's going to become more evident to you and to the rest of the investor community over the next two years," said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge, a company that builds data centers as well as small cells, cell towers, fiber networks and other such infrastructure. Ganzi was speaking during DigitalBridge's recent quarterly conference call, according to Seeking Alpha.

Continued Ganzi: "We started talking about this over two years ago at the Berlin Infrastructure Conference when I told the investor world, we're running out of power in five years. Well, I was wrong about that. We're kind of running out of power in the next 18 to 24 months."

Of course, Ganzi isn't the only one sounding the alarm. "Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power," reads the Washington Post. "A.I. Frenzy Complicates Efforts to Keep Power-Hungry Data Sites Green," reads the New York Times.

Questing for Power

"The problem has been known for a very long time," Denise Lee, VP of Cisco's sustainability engineering office, told Light Reading in a recent interview.

But Lee said that, now, two major trends are getting ready to crash into each other: Cutting-edge AI is supercharging demand for power-hungry data center processing, while slow-moving power utilities are struggling to keep up with demand amid outdated technologies and voluminous regulations.

According to the financial analysts at TD Cowen, the situation is becoming acute.

"Our checks indicate that the minimum lead time to get data center power in most major US markets is +3 years," they wrote in a February report.

Specifically, they wrote that it can take up to two-and-a-half years in Dallas to obtain permits for the power necessary to run a new data center. In Atlanta that's up to six years. And in Silicon Valley, it can take up to seven years.

But it's even worse in Europe, the TD Cowen analysts warned. Lead times are now up to eight years in top markets like Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin.

"This represents an incremental elongation vs. lead times seen a few months ago, a trend which we expect to continue," the TD Cowen analysts wrote.

AI Demand

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that the 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) consumed by data centers in 2022 represented 2% of all global electricity usage. Much of that was driven by computing and cooling functions within data centers.

The report also predicted that data center electricity usage will double by 2026. It blamed the rise of power-intensive workloads such as AI and cryptocurrency mining.

AI systems generally run on graphical processing units (GPUs). Those demand more power than traditional central processing units (CPUs), but they can also produce more computations.

The IEA report isn't the only one forecasting the power demands of AI. For example, the Uptime Institute predicts AI will account for 10% of the data center industry's global power use by 2025 – up from 2% today, according to the NYT.

A Range of Solutions

According to Lee, the Cisco executive, data center operators are working to address the situation using a variety of strategies. For example, she said that some data center operators are locating their systems near natural gas or hydropower sources. Amazon put one of its data centers next to a nuclear power plant, she said.

Others are using decommissioned Navy ships in order to make use of liquid cooling, thereby lowering computer-cooling costs.

"There's no one size that fits all," she said.

"A big piece of the power puzzle centers around renewables," argued Ganzi, the DigitalBridge executive.

He said Switch, one of DigitalBridge's data center companies, is mostly using electricity generated by wind and solar. Another DigitalBridge company, in Brazil, is using hydropower.

The Fiber

The data centers using all that power are also prime customers for fiber networks, according to those in the industry. After all, that's the primary technology for moving data – including AI computations – into and out of a data center.

"We expect that our recent wins for AI data centers will translate into orders and sales during the year," said Wendell Weeks, CEO of fiber provider Corning, during his company's recent quarterly conference call, according to Seeking Alpha.

And according to the financial analysts at TD Cowen, fiber network operators are bulking up their orders to address AI traffic around data centers.

"For example, demand for 144 [fiber] strands (from typical 8-12 strand orders in the past) and 400 gig circuits are becoming far more prevalent as it seems customers are buying network first and asking questions later," wrote the TD Cowen analysts in February of their meetings at the Metro Connect fiber trade show in Florida.

According to Ganzi, most current AI training operations do not need a speedy, low-latency connection between a user and a data center. But that may change as AI operations shift to an "inference" model. Under that scenario, data centers will need to focus on the speedy delivery of AI services to nearby end users.

"The whole fiber industry in general is going to need more new routes, low latency routes, and of course heavy strand count. And that's the way you bridge the gap in terms of creating low-latency environments for AI workloads," Ganzi said.

This article originally appeared on Light Reading.

AFCOM: What does your day-to-day look like? What are your favorite parts of your job?

Well, I probably came by the desire to play with hardware earlier than a lot of humans. I started playing with robotics when I was a kid, and then got into building my first server when I was 12, running a BBS service. I’ve definitely always loved tinkering with servers, which is probably how I ended up in data centers. I also studied electrical engineering. I started by doing silicon developments in processor companies, and then my desire to keep learning one kind of level of context above what I knew just meant I kept seeing more parts of the industry.

After I learned about silicon development, I was like, oh, I really want to understand the system that's going into. How are the systems built? How are they networked? What are they connecting to? What are the challenges? Where are they making those connections? What do we understand about upstream fiber and the building monitoring systems? What's actually happening to make the cloud run? Every opportunity felt like a chance to learn more.

AFCOM: What do you like about the industry? What industry trends or emerging technologies have made you the most excited?

It's such an incredible industry, because there is so much happening…from silicon to systems to the data centers, there are constant opportunities to learn. There's innovations in DevOps 24/7, and there's innovations in power heating and cooling. So, if you're like me and love to get excited about new tools and techniques and technologies, this is an ideal day job

There are clearly amazing opportunities in terms of development efficiency, operational efficiency, and automation that AI is enabling. It's an incredible time to be in the domain space of transformation with those tools coming online.

If we are talking about exciting tech in terms of that domain space, for me, the most exciting part is thinking about the complexity of legacy stacks and transformation, and the complexity of DevOps stacks in all the different clouds. Stitching this stuff together is incredibly hard and these tools are making it significantly easier.

There’s also so much innovation happening around power delivery and clean power and sustainable data center practices, from green concrete through to circular economy and open firmware. We can recycle and upcycle servers for 2nd life and, you know, as a person in this world that's exciting. I know our data centers are using something like 10% of the world's energy, but if they continue on the trajectory they've been growing at, by 2030 they'd be using about 25-30% of the world’s consumption of energy. That's not a sustainable trajectory to be on if we don't continue to get more efficient and continue to find more renewable sources for these power-hungry environments. AI has exacerbated that problem.

AFCOM: In your opinion, how can the industry encourage and empower more women to start a career in data centers?

I do believe representation matters, and I believe exposure matters, and I think one of the problems we have is we have a stereotype of a programmer, a stereotype of somebody who operates in data centers, that doesn't match. The numbers of women in tech are still moderately depressing, but it doesn't match the actuality of the industry.

We're starting to see STEAM programs and general programs that are reaching out to girls and marginalized people in general. Organizations like "Women Who Code" are trying to build representation within underrepresented communities to help them see people like themselves in this industry.

But the most important thing is that we have to affect the pipeline. We are only getting 20% of women into electrical engineering, closer to 30% in computer science, but in electrical engineering which is the bigger feeder for data centers (whether syndicated systems design or development) The other big feeder is the facility side or construction, but those avenues have even fewer women. We need to begin outreach during puberty...when women become more cognizant of the perceptions people have of us.

We need to keep women engaged in math and science throughout their education, and that is true of women and all marginalized people. We need to keep them engaged in the critical underpinnings of what it's going to take to have them be successful and engineering careers. And then in college, they need to have opportunities to get their hands on context.

Internships offer valuable experience. Getting into the industry and getting your hands on real problems and seeing the impact is absolutely going to help us retain that talent into the industry. Then we need to keep hiring diverse people at every level, because diverse people have diverse networks.

AFCOM: What advice would you provide to young professionals looking to start a career in the data center industry?

The best piece of advice I've received is to not take it personally. 

You get a lot of feedback, whether it's implicit or explicit, and you just have to remember, it's not all about you. I think I took everything far too personally and thought everything was an indication of my intelligence. And you know, unfortunately or fortunately, life is much more complicated than that. There are 1 million different factors that lead to success: not just your hard work, not just your intelligence, but your communication, your presentation. Work will teach you things that you won't learn in your education, about what success looks like. And that feedback is a gift.

Yeah, trying to park the hurt and just focus on the input. Input will help you self-correct to get to a successful phase. And it's very simple advice. It's just, it's probably not about you.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of our "Women in Data Centers" interview series.

AFCOM: What drew you to work in tech in general?

I ended up in data centers by accident. My degree is in mechanical engineering and thermodynamics, which is how I ended up in heating and air conditioning. I worked in that space for 17 years before a friend in data centers called me for help and that's how I started in the industry. That was about three and a half years ago, and I’ve been full-time in data centers ever since.

AFCOM: What emerging technologies or trends are most exciting to you right now?

Liquid cooling. There’s just so much going on in test labs and there's so much that is no longer theoretical, but it's still very much in what I would call a beta stage and there are so many competing viewpoints right now.

If I were to go back, even 18 months ago, there was this mindset that immersion was just going to take over everything. Now, what I'm seeing, at least based on the customers that we work with, immersion is definitely out there, but I see a lot more applications for cold plate, both single phase and phase two cold plate. A lot of places aren't going full-bore immersion or they got burned on immersion somehow because of the different dielectric fluids or concerns with compatibility. There was an easier transition to cold plate it seems than immersion for some customers. It's just very interesting to see how it's progressing.

AFCOM: What would you say is your greatest career achievement? And what is something you hope to achieve in the next five to ten years?

That’s a surprisingly difficult question. I don't know how to answer the greatest career achievement. A lot of it really would come down to the value I put on contributing. It’s not so much a single achievement, but the ability to contribute to having more efficient and sustainable data centers. So much of what I get frustrated about is all of these companies that have ESG goals and then they continue to design data centers the same way they've always designed them when there's so much that can be improved. Being able to contribute to a more sustainable future for data centers is what I find most value in.

As far as what I hope to accomplish? I just want to continue contributing to a more sustainable future, as well as supporting other women in data centers.

Otherwise, we started a group in Silicon Valley for women in data centers. Some of the women I've encountered don't know what it looks like for them, especially if they're in data center operations. They don't know what it looks like when they have a family, and they express a lot of concerns around having a family and a fulltime job in data centers. Helping support them and helping them find career paths that allow them to do both is something that I hope to continue to do.

AFCOM: What challenges have you faced as a woman in the data center industry? What do you think can be done to encourage women and other marginalized identities to enter the data center industry?

I think the first thing is exposure. I don't know a single person who set out to say I'm going into data centers. Most people don’t even know what a data center is. You know, people know about the cloud, but most people don’t think about the cloud as a building. So getting into classrooms and talking about data centers at a younger age is critical.

There were so few women in mechanical engineering. The college I went to was 6% women in the mechanical engineering program. In data centers, the number is even less. My personal experience coming into data centers was fairly difficult. I've been in the data center industry and mechanical engineering industry for 17 years and they are very male dominated. The data center industry is one of the biggest boys' clubs I've ever seen. Had I been new in the industry, right out of college, right out of a trade program, I don't know if I would have stayed in data centers because of the way the environment is. So that's the other thing that I've been very passionate about is how we change that. Thinking about how we support women in data centers and then how we encourage women in data centers to stay in the industry.

AFCOM: Do you have advice you could offer women in the industry?

My biggest advice would be to get involved in professional organizations like AFCOM and 7x24 and to build a network. Building your own network and seeking out others in the industry to help support you would be my number one recommendation.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of our "Women in Data Centers" interview series.

The opening keynote at Data Center World 2024 featured speakers from AMD and Intel discussing the transformative impact of artificial intelligence – and advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) – on the data center industry. They touched upon a wide range of topics including the latest advancements in AI algorithms and GPU architectures, how these are boosting energy efficiency, the role of AI-driven automation and how data center infrastructure is shifting dramatically to support burgeoning AI workloads.

Jennifer Majernik Huffstetler, chief product sustainability officer at Intel, started by explaining that it is not just processors that are facilitating the AI revolution. It takes a combination of:

• Bigger and denser processors with far more cores.
  
• Hardware and software optimized for energy efficiency to take advantage of the capabilities of AI.
  
• Generative AI (GenAI) models optimized for specific use cases and workloads.

The Need for Domain-Specific Models

While ChatGPT may have become pervasive, it is not the best model for the enterprise, according to Huffstetler. Eighty percent of data remains on premises and the bulk of it is unused.

“To address business needs, smaller models are evolving that are domain specific,” said Huffstetler.

She offered an example:One company owned a repository of 50,000 in-house documents. AI specialists trained a model on that content to provide insight for its consultants. The AI model operated within the firewall, thus eliminating many of the security, privacy and accuracy concerns related to internet-based models. As it focused solely upon in-house documents written by experts over many years, the model avoided the hallucination headaches that plague broader-based GenAI models.

Whether models are large or small, they demand a complete rethink when it comes to processing power, density, power and cooling, she added.

“New software and hardware solutions that use liquid cooling can cut energy usage by 40% but more innovation is needed,” said Huffstetler. “Through collaboration, we can lower energy consumption while enhancing performance.”

She urged patience in the headlong rush to an AI future. Virtualization technology took close to a decade to become pervasive. During that time, steady and sometimes spectacular gains took place.

“GenAI’s maturity will arrive much faster, but there are challenges to overcome,” said Huffstetler. “What is clear is that liquid cooling will be required by high-performance GenAI apps and racks as we can’t achieve density any other way.”

AI Reciprocity

There may be plenty of work needed to prepare data centers to host demanding AI applications, but it is a reciprocal arrangement. AI can be harnessed to glean insights that can lower energy consumption and boost efficiency. Software tools already exist that can lower energy consumption in high-end processing by 20% to 30%, Huffstetler said. As AI develops, expect it to further enhance energy usage – even in legacy data center facilities. AI-based robotics, for instance, could become a game changer within a couple of years.

“AI will have many waves; in ten years we will look back and hardly recognize the data center,” said Huffstetler. “Software is the biggest lever for greater efficiency. It is estimated that 30% of modern processing capabilities are currently being wasted due to lack of software integration and orchestration.”

New Builds Versus AI Retrofits

During the Data Center World keynote, Laura Smith, CVP of engineering solutions at AMD, explained that current data centers are not fit for AI purposes. Modernization efforts, however, run into inherent limitations.

“Current data centers don’t have the right infrastructure to adopt new technology which is why there is such a big push to modernize them,” said Smith. “Space, power, cooling, floor design and budget constraints make it difficult.”

Despite the obvious problems that lie ahead, Smith believes the journey is worth it. Upgrades can drive density upwards to enable the facility to get more out of an existing space.

Before anyone embarks on AI-based upgrades, she recommended liaison with top management to explain the return on investment from what could be a large investment. Some organizations will act now to capitalize on the AI boom. Others will hedge their bets. But both camps should design their facilities and plan their upgrades with the future in mind.

“Even if you are not an early adopter, design with a view to what you are likely to need up the line,” said Smith.

She said it’s important to look beyond the latest technology. Her advice was to look a few years ahead to ensure you don’t get caught in perpetual upgrades. Such is the pace of progress that something new is likely to arise from the AI, GPU, cooling or power sector that might necessitate another round of upgrades. Thorough homework and due diligence can help data centers avoid the scenario where they complete one modernization initiative and have to launch straight into the next one.

“The market is rapidly changing,” said Smith. “No one knows what the ideal architecture will be, but we still need to prepare.”

AI Better Than Humans? Not So Fast

Vlad Galabov, head of the data center practice at Omdia, rounded out the opening keynote by stressing today’s environment of constant change and steady technological advances. What seems like a huge AI initiative today may be modest in a couple of years.

“The science of AI is progressing so rapidly that model building is being disrupted,” he said.

Galabov doesn’t buy into the idea that AI will supplant humans – at least any time soon. He believes immense development remains to be done on the next phase of AI.

First there was predictive AI. Now we are in the GenAI phase. That is being followed by an artificial generative intelligence (AGI) phase, he said. AGI can be defined as human-like intelligence with the ability to self-teach and do far more than what is trained on.

“AGI has the potential to exceed human intelligence and capabilities in 20 years,” said Galabov. “That will only happen if we improve AI algorithms by four times each year for two decades in tandem with major advances in software and hardware optimization.

This article originally appeared on Data Center Knowledge.

Driven by the ever-increasing demand for data processing and storage, the data center construction industry is undergoing a monumental shift. As digital technologies like AI, IoT, and cloud computing proliferate, data centers are adapting to meet the evolving needs of a data-hungry world.

Key issues impacting the data center construction space will take center stage at the Data Center Build summit this month. Running as part of the 2024 Data Center World conference and expo in Washington, DC, the two-day construction and design summit will bring together operators, decision-makers, and industry experts to explore the challenges and opportunities impacting the sector.

Ahead of the event, we spoke with industry experts to set the scene by laying out the top trends they expect to take place in the data center construction space this year.

Speed, Prefabrication, and Creativity

According to Ron Vokoun, Director of National Market Development at Everus Construction Group and chair of Data Center Build, one of the most significant trends in data center construction in 2024 is the emphasis on getting things done quickly and efficiently.

“Data center construction is all about speed in this labor-constrained market,” Vokoun tells Data Center Knowledge. “Any and all ideas that can increase throughput on the construction site without requiring more labor will be given consideration.”

This need for speed has led to a focus on prefabrication. The 2024 AFCOM State of the Data Center Report notes that: “The hybrid approach, a mix of traditional building and prefabricated modules, appears to be the most common approach to new data center builds over the next three years.”

“Modular and prefabrication are not new concepts, but the data center industry was slow to fully adopt them,” Vokoun explained. “Due to scalability, a hybrid approach will rule the day for hyperscale data centers. Over the last several years, prefabricated electrical and mechanical assemblies have gained in popularity.”

When it comes to faster and more efficient construction, flexibility and creativity are key, according to Tony Qorri, vice president of construction at DataBank. “Approaches to stacking equipment, modularity, and prefabrication have all got to continue to evolve. We’ve got to build a lot of flexibility into our data center designs. The need for higher workloads and higher densities dictate the change in our design, and not solely construction techniques, but starting at the very beginning of designs when you’re just putting pen to paper. That’s when you’ve got to be creative. We got to get more creative when it comes to getting more power into a building.”

Bill Kleyman, program chair for Data Center World and the author of AFCOM’s State of the Data Center Report, echoes Qorri’s emphasis on the need for flexibility and innovation.

“The reality is pretty straightforward: we can’t build data centers the same way we used to. The good news is that there are a lot of innovative leaders. A great example is Compass Data Centers. While visiting their Red Oaks, Texas, construction site, I got the chance to see a 400 MW data center build. However, there was something very special here in that these buildings were being constructed as 40 MW prefabricated halls. The really cool part here is that each 40 MW hall is 70% prefabricated, and much of the batch processing was being done directly on-site. This construction method is extraordinary in the sense that you are bringing up 10s of megawatts far faster than you could ever before.”

The Rise of AI and High-Density Computing

The AI revolution is another driving force behind the evolution of data center construction. The substantial computational power demands from LLMs and AI-powered applications are encouraging the development of a new generation of high-density computing environments.

“As AI requirements grow, data center operators must adapt their infrastructure to accommodate high power-density server clusters,” Vokoun said.

The construction tech sector is attracting significant investment, with AI playing an increasingly important role in project scheduling, resource allocation, site safety monitoring, and data-driven decision-making. “AI adoption in construction is still evolving, and the potential benefits are significant,” the Everus director explained. “As technology advances and challenges like data integration and talent development are addressed, AI is likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping the future of the construction industry.”

Kleyman likewise underscores AI’s pivotal role in the industry and attributes the remarkable pace of digital infrastructure acceleration and the adoption of techniques like prefabricated electrical and mechanical assemblies – mainly to generative AI. “The pace of acceleration in digital infrastructure has been quite extraordinary, and all of it is being led by the 500-pound GPT-generated gorilla in the room: Generative AI,” he said. “In our AFCOM report, most respondents (56%) plan to deploy AI-capable solutions in their data centers, most commonly to support new generative AI use cases (43%).”

“New data centers will need to be built from the ground up (rather than retrofitted) to be AI-ready, as the infrastructure has unique cooling and power requirements,” Dell’Oro Group analyst Baron Fung told Data Center Knowledge. “We expect new data center space will need to be added for years to come. Already, the hyperscale cloud and colocation service providers are in a race to build newer and more facilities globally.”

Renewable Energy and Cooling Concerns

The significance of sustainability and integrating renewable energy sources is growing in the construction of data centers, particularly as the demands of AI continue to escalate. The 2024 State of the Data Center Report reveals that over 73% of respondents plan to utilize renewable energy, with solar (59%) and wind (28%) being the most popular choices. "For the hyperscale data center operators, sustainability and renewable energy have been table stakes for years now," Vokoun states. "The hyperscalers will need to double down on renewable energy and sustainability due to the increased densities associated with AI."

Vokoun’s comments came as John Pettigrew, head of the UK’s national grid, said electricity demand from the country’s data centers will jump sixfold over the next 10 years.

“Future growth in foundational technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing will mean larger-scale, energy-intensive computing infrastructure,” Pettigrew said during a conference in Oxford last month.

Data centers face escalating challenges in managing power and improving energy efficiently, Qorri said sustainability would remain a key trend through 2024. “I think in the next several years, we’re going to see a lot more evolution and focus on how to be more sustainable at data centers,” he said. “There’s talk of things like solar wind, small nuclear reactors, and hydrogen fuel cells. Finding other sources of power has become a serious issue for the industry.”

Kleyman added: “Just as quickly as generative AI has taken the market, there have been new conversations around power sources that have been around for quite some time, specifically nuclear energy. Between this year and last year, per the AFCOM State of the Data Center report, respondents who have stated that they will utilize or at the very least look at nuclear energy more than doubled to almost 1/4 of respondents (21%, up from 10% last year).

“This year, at the AFCOM Data Center World event, Dr Kathryn Huff, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the US Department of Energy, will explore the dynamic changes in clean energy usage and policy that are reshaping our world. She will delve into the critical role of nuclear technologies in bolstering energy grids, providing a stable and efficient power source that complements intermittent renewables like solar and wind. A highlight of her talk will be the intersection of nuclear energy with digital infrastructure.”

Cool Runnings

The recent AFCOM report also highlighted data center operators’ increased investment in advanced cooling systems, most notably liquid cooling.

According to Kleyman, this is expected to remain a focal point of discussion and development in the data center design space over the coming months. “What feels like almost overnight, conversations around liquid cooling, single-phase and two-phase liquid cooling solutions, direct-to-chip liquid cooling solutions, and even rear-door heat exchangers have become commonplace,” he said.

Vokoun agrees that cooling is a key concern. “I expect to continue to see innovation in data center cooling technology,” he noted. “With each successive iteration of AI chips, densities will continue to ramp up well past the capabilities of air cooling. Liquid cooling, in all of its many forms, will become commonplace in data centers. My personal opinion is that liquid to the chip will become the dominant technology, but time will tell.”

This article originally appeared on Data Center Knowledge.

AFCOM: What does your day-to-day look like? What are your favorite parts of your job?

Each day is different; I may have a TO DO list to start with, but I must shift priorities all day long. Emails, ‘quick’ phone calls coming in, and constant project reviews with my team are typical day interrupters. We handle and juggle many data center projects each day, and they all require differing levels of attention. For the main part, my Facilities teams manage the day-to-day projects on the data center floor. We collaborate a lot and discuss what is needed and the financial implications.

I am the liaison between Facilities and IT and have built a solid relationship to handle data center needs. IT brings in the equipment for Facilities to install and we maintain the infrastructure (electrical and data). We work together to ensure that we cover the scope of each project and marry it into the existing infrastructure.

My favorite parts of my job have to do with the people. I am a people person and enjoy building teams. In most of my 34-year career I have been in facilities management, and I've been involved with data centers the last 12 years. Being one of the few women in both male-dominated industries has taught me how to work with anyone. I manage and lead in many ways and always try to cultivate open collaboration and communication.

AFCOM: What industry trends or emerging technologies have made you the most excited?

Well, two things: AI and nuclear energy. Artificial intelligence has been around for decades, but we're finally growing into it. I think with all the technology we have around us, it's the perfect time for AI to explode even more. It’s interesting; if you ask a lot of people about AI, a common answer is that "I don’t want the robots to take over." I don’t feel that way; I've believed AI enhances our work and capabilities. The sheer amount of data that can be culled through in seconds and minutes by machines/programs to provide an answer or options saves countless human hours/days/weeks.

Nuclear energy is fascinating. It has such great potential to provide a reliable and constant power source with very minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously, there are quite a few issues that need to be resolved (no community wants it, a huge uphill battle with perception, and how do we use it practically). To make this work, data centers need flexibility and scalability, regulatory issues, and a revitalization of public perception. But I see a nugget of sheer possibility that, with time, we will figure out how this could work.

AFCOM: What do you consider to be your greatest professional accomplishment thus far? What do you hope to accomplish by 2030?

There are several accomplishments that come to mind. Back in my 20’s, I worked on a $50 million healthcare modernization and became the overall lead of the project. It was so exciting when we opened the new hospital doors to the public.

Back in my thirties, I managed a 3000 person move into a new campus through 25 moves over the course of 7 weeks. The amount of work to get everyone ready and moved was massive. But the day after each move, when I walked around to everyone’s new desk, it was so awesome. Very few had any complaints. Most were so excited for their new desk, their new light-filled offices, and overall were just happy to be in a new space.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my CFM Certified Facility Manager credentialing. I studied for the exam, but the amount of facilities work I had done up to that point readied me for the initial test. Most of all the questions were based on something I had come across in facilities.

I am currently working on my master’s in management and the plan is to be done in 2025. I then want to move right into a PhD. I am not quite sure what my degree or focus will be, but I do love the data center industry. It is endlessly fascinating, and, who knows, maybe in a few years there will be more courses about data centers.

AFCOM: In your opinion, how can the industry encourage and empower more women to start a career in data centers?

Women need to always encourage women! I am in two male-dominated fields, facilities and data centers, and I have not had any mentors because there are so few of us. I’d like to change that dynamic and be a mentor to others. Let’s grab ‘em while they are young – talk to schools, go to career days, show them what data centers can do. Data centers are so prevalent in our technologically savvy world right now but are such a hidden part. We need to be more vocal – we need to talk more about our field. We’ve been secretive for too long – to the point where everyone I meet asks: What is a data center?

AFCOM: What advice would you provide to young professionals looking to start a career in the data center industry?

Study up on everything about data centers and the industry. So many fields interconnect into a data center: IT, data analytics, engineering, data technicians, electrical, mechanical, information security, etc. Many of us just fell into the data center field – there was no rhyme or reason. But now that I am here – I love the potential of data centers and am excited to see it grow into so much more. I'd love for younger generations to see the potential of this industry and continue to help build it into something new.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of our "Women in Data Centers" interview series.

There are many trends and technologies affecting data centers on a global scale. These include pressure to achieve sustainability, rising rack densities, coping with demanding AI workloads, the need for more data centers and the implementation of advanced cooling. Vladimir Galabov, Research Director of Cloud and Data Center at Omdia, provided an overview of these subjects during a recent AFCOM webinar titled Leap Year Insights from Omdia’s Research Director.

Data Centers: A Force for Good

Galabov began by explaining how data centers are a “force for good,” but we need to do a better job of letting the world know. So much attention is devoted to the high power and water consumption of data centers. While sustainability initiatives can and should be given priority, there is another side to the story that is usually missed: The industry has positively impacted worldwide energy usage.

“We don’t do enough to capture and promote the efficiency gains that are afforded by the technology industry in making the overall economy less energy-intensive,” said Galabov. “The paper industry, for example, is one of the most energy-intensive; technology has certainly made a huge difference by reducing reliance on paper.”

He cited a Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory study indicating that even greater use of technology can reduce the growth of carbon emissions by one third. Another study by the University of Tokyo found that Japan could decrease its carbon dioxide emissions by 40% or more through IT. Similarly, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimated that for every kilowatt of energy consumed by the IT sector, 10 are saved in other sectors.

“Look at energy use in the United States in the 1970s and project that same level of energy intensity forward; we would be consuming a significantly higher amount of energy today if it wasn’t for data centers,” said Galabov.

How AI Impacts Energy Consumption

The advent of generative AI means there are going to be more and more questions asked of the data center industry about our responsibility from a power consumption perspective. But what needs to be understood, Galabov says, is that between 2008 and 2020 – despite a vast upsurge in worldwide computing and internet usage – data center’s share of global electricity usage remained about 1%. Such efforts emphasize the massive strides made in efficiency centered around power usage effectiveness (PUE). Case in point: more than 13,000 bank branches have been closed in the U.S. as end users moved to digital banking.

However, the growth of AI and adoption of GPUs is about to change the energy usage equation. NVIDIA projections for 2024 show more than double the shipments of data center GPUs, compared to previous numbers. That’s going to add a lot to power demands.

“As more power is dedicated to AI, the share of worldwide electricity in the data center is rising to about 2% within a couple of years,” said Galabov.

Data Center Construction Trends

Beyond increased power consumption, Omdia expects the pace of data center construction to slow in mature locations such as the U.S., EU and China as abundant capacity already exists. In emerging locations, however, the pace will ramp up. Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, India, Thailand and Vietnam will all see more data centers, Galabov said. Hence, U.S. construction has dropped from 49% of the worldwide total in 2017 to 35% today.

“Ethiopia and Namibia plan to double data center capacity each year, though they are starting from a relatively low number,” said Galabov. “Another factor to understand is that ongoing data sovereignty initiatives will impact where data is stored and where new data centers are most needed.”

In addition to more data centers, the world will also see rack density increasing for the next several years. From 7 kW per rack in 2021, we have already arrived at average rack densities of 12 kW, according to Omdia. Expect that upward trajectory to continue with 20 kW averages likely by 2030.

Efficiency and Sustainability

With such an upsurge in power usage and density forecast for the coming years, the industry must double down on efficiency and sustainability. Galabov said we are about to experience a new wave of data center optimization with a focus on reduction of the IT footprint – consolidation of equipment, fewer mechanical components, improvements in power conversion, and the advent of AI-powered DCIM and management systems for the data center.

“There is an opportunity for DCIM to become a centralized automation tool that can operate across data centers and all the way to the edge,” said Galabov. “By enriching DCIM with AI, we can minimize the impact of staff shortages and evolve ways to further improve efficiency and sustainability, both at the IT and the physical infrastructure level.”

According to the AFCOM State of the Data Center 2024 survey, more than half of all data centers plan to implement solar and more than 25% are adding wind. Others are looking at nuclear, hydrogen, geothermal and battery energy storage systems (BESS). This can lower the cost of energy overall by moving away from reliance on a utility.

The Data Center Becomes an 'AI Factory'

AI is exerting its influence on just about every area of life – including the data center. One in five people in the United States had used generative AI. Many data centers are in the planning stages in devising long-term AI strategies.

“Step one is to turn the data center from a compute and storage factory into an AI factory,” said Galabov.

That entails accommodating higher density and gaining further efficiencies such as improving airflow management and containment. Expect liquid cooling to evolve rapidly, too, with low-cost options appearing, he added. For example, a Chinese company named KeenCool has developed a single-phase liquid that is selling at 6% of the cost of that offered currently by others.

“As liquid cooling becomes more democratized, we're going to see more competition across the direct-to-chip and immersion cooling markets,” said Galabov. “Immersion cooling prices should come down considerably.”

Further, expect changes related to AC to DC power conversion. NVIDIA reports, for example, that around 10% of power is being lost in these conversions in its DGX Server. Systems are being developed that need fewer conversions from AC to DC within the data center. Some data centers are also seeking greater efficiencies through consolidation. One facility worked with Dell, for example, and decreased its IT footprint by 90% and energy bills by 75%.

“The data center of the future may end up having fewer racks that are of higher density,” said Galabov. “We have been reducing PUE successfully through more efficient cooling and power infrastructure, but there is still room to reduce the power conversion to address unnecessary power loss while improving the utilization of IT equipment.”

Old vs. New Data Centers

Galabov believes that traditional data centers should be regarded as a major success story. Through virtualization, containerization, software-defined architectures, the cloud and IT consolidation, they have achieved big gains in efficiency and performance. Now, we are entering into a new era of utilization for the data center via areas such as application optimization and improvements in processing power and design. Google is a good example: For media processing, it has deployed highly optimized servers, where they're now replacing five old servers running YouTube with one of new one containing low-power ASICs.

“New data centers will optimize their physical infrastructure for AI,” said Galabov. “Liquid cooling is already being optimized for AI and we will soon see centralized, AI-driven energy management systems.”

This article originally appeared on Data Center Knowledge.

AFCOM: What does your day-to-day look like? What are your favorite parts of your job and have they evolved over time?

My role is as a technologist looking at future technologies and system design as part of the Chief Technology Office at Dell. My days are spent developing and evaluating future technologies, working with customers on their future needs and current pain points, and brainstorming with my colleagues to refine designs.

The favorite part of my job is the collaborative and iterative problem solving of complex challenges. In the moment it feels like just the day-to-day, but every now and then you can see how far we’ve come and how much we’ve learnt along the way. These aspects better inform our designs for the future.

AFCOM: What industry trends or emerging technologies have made you the most excited?

I am excited about future breakthroughs that will impact human progress in not just technology areas like Generative AI, data analytics and high performance computing, but the impact these technologies will have in disciplines that use these techniques. Climate modeling, drug discovery, deeper understanding of diseases and breakthroughs in treatments, connecting people, improving lives – to me those are the true applications of new technologies and I am excited to see what we can do collectively.

AFCOM: What do you consider to be your greatest professional accomplishment thus far? What do you hope to accomplish by 2030?

I have led and been a part of many Dell “firsts” in my career so far and each one was its own remarkable milestone. Finding solutions for challenging problems with engineering rigor makes me proud to be able to contribute to technologies that drive scientific advancements. What I am most proud of is being a trusted advisor and a mentor (and in my own learning along that journey). Conversations around coaching and advocacy, technical discussions for expert insight, and the direct value of these discussions to people make me proud to be part of this community and the ability to pay back.

AFCOM: In your opinion, how can the industry encourage and empower more women to start a career in data centers?

This is an important question and I don’t have any perfect magic answers. I think all people are looking for similar things for a fulfilling career – to work on something meaningful, in an environment that is collaborative and inclusive, with leaders that provide direction and guidance, and in a team that values their work. For leaders this means establishing routines and a team culture that encourages and provides a conducive environment for open discussion. Extra context, frequent check-ins and feedback is a good way to keep a team aligned and reconcile disconnects early on. Women should be encouraged to bring new perspectives and be supported individually and publicly. Whether it's meetings or social events, teams should consider the needs of all their colleagues, Examples include holding key meetings at times when team members are not busy with morning/evening child care duties, or planning team events with enough heads up so folks can manage their schedules.

AFCOM: What advice would you provide to young professionals looking to start a career in the data center industry?

Look for the folks willing to teach, and in turn, even with the first set of projects look to teach and share what you’ve learned. Teaching is harder than doing, it sharpens one’s own understanding and keeps us grounded. Focus on and continue to develop deep fundamental knowledge in your area of work. Learning how to extract meaning out of data, and how to present your material effectively to different types of audiences is a good skill to develop as well.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of our "Women in Data Centers" interview series.

AFCOM: What does your day-to-day look like? What are your favorite parts of your job and have they evolved over time?

It's definitely evolved. I've been in almost every part of this industry you can be in. So it's definitely evolved over time. A typical day is a hot mess. I write, but I also do a lot of consulting. And so I change between multiple hats and switch between multiple projects.  I'm either doing technical writing, I'm writing a book or I'm working on a project. So my day is different every day. 

AFCOM: What is the technical writing that you do?

I do a lot of whitepapers, blogs, that kind of stuff for different companies all across the industry.

AFCOM: What is your favorite aspect of your job?

It's just the industry as a whole, because it always changes. There's always new technology, there's always an opportunity to learn. And once you get into that cycle, it's addictive. You can't stop learning if you're one of those people that likes to learn.

AFCOM: What industry trends or emerging technologies have made you most excited? And what do you personally hope to accomplish? By say, 2030?

Isn’t that the reason we moved to Florida? That is my goal. I want to retire by then.

But, I do think new technologies, AI, machine learning, really stand the chance to change things. So if you think about it from the perspective of if we really embrace diversity—diversity in thought, expression, experiences, all of it. I think of it like fingerprints, because every fingerprint is unique, and every person is unique. So we start bringing people into the industry from all different backgrounds, people that used to be mechanics, or people that worked in a factory and people that worked in a warehouse and people that were babysitters and people that were artists and writers. Now think about putting that collective mind together to solve a problem.

AFCOM: Do you think writing your book has been the accomplishment that is most important to you?

I've gotten a lot of awards and a lot of accolades, and I'm very humbled by that, and certainly, so appreciative and grateful. But to me, the thing that makes the most is seeing somebody's life change because I had input in it, and it made a difference. So whether that's, you know, helping someone out with a design that actually helped them get the sale, so they feed their family a little better, and they learned a little bit along the way, Or maybe it’s that somebody reads the book, and then I get these really great notes back and letters back about what it meant, or you know, how it helped them in some way. Or they asked questions. Those are the things that that really, that's what really warms my heart. That's, to me, those are the accomplishments.

When I started in this industry, there were no women. I taught a class that had about 1500 people in it on networking, when nobody even knew what that was. There were three women in the room. Me, the woman that scanned the badges at the door, and one woman that was actually in the industry. Now it's so different. There's so many women. I've brought a lot of women networking groups together and just being able to build up that positive reinforcement and positive dome over somebody, that's where it's at.

AFCOM: What do you think this industry could do to empower women–not just women, but anyone who has been marginalized by the tech world–whether they’re just coming into the field or later in their career?

First off, I think that we need to talk about more than coding when we talk about the tech industry, and we need to begin at a very young age. It's really unfortunate that most kids only exposure to tech is coding, because coding is not for everybody There are a million tech jobs around—from the person that digs the trenches, and the person that turns the earth over with the bulldozers to the Masons, the carpenters, the electricians, the plumbers, the networking folks, server teams, all of that is part of tech and part of this industry.

This is part of why I wrote my book. I have a friend in the industry with two young kids. She went to their school and wanted to talk to them about data centers. And the teacher said, I'm sorry, that's not on the curriculum. You can't do that. And I thought, well, what if there was a book on data centers and how the industry works, then you could read a book. Now we can read a book and a story about us. So we talk about the people that run the cable under the sea, to satellites, and what's in a data center and how it gets there. I made it about a kid sending a smile to a grandma, and how it gets to the data center for her grandma to get later. Yeah. And so I think we have to start those conversations much earlier.

AFCOM: Do you have specific advice for people entering the field right now?

Networking is absolutely critical. Be an active participant in what you don't know. If somebody turns you down, and you ask them a question, just go ask somebody else, but start building that body of knowledge because the more you know, the better it is.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of our "Women in Data Centers" interview series.

Quantum Corridor, a Midwestern US fiber-optic network, has joined an expanding group of infrastructure organizations aiming to take data center connectivity speeds to the next level following the recent launch of one of the fastest fiber-optic networks in the Western Hemisphere.

With the assistance of a $4 million grant from the state of Indiana, the network recently accomplished lightning-fast data transfer speeds of 40 Tbps during its first transmissions from the Chicago ORD 10 Data Center to an IT facility in Hammond, Indiana. This is equivalent to transmitting 1,500 hours of video per second and is more than 1,000 times faster than conventional networks, which typically advertise multi-Gbps speeds.

The networking milestone comes amid increased demand for advanced data processing capabilities. In a recent report, consulting firm McKinsey & Company notes that, in the US alone, data center demand is forecast to grow by 10% a year until 2030, making the need for highly efficient and secure fiber-optic networks even more critical.

“Higher security, faster speeds, and more capacity are all going to be key targets for the data center industry as it adjusts to the demands of generative AI and increased data consumption, and quantum networks have the potential to help the industry meet those targets,” Ellie Brown, analyst at 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, told Data Center Knowledge.

The Need for Speed

When it comes to new, data-hungry technologies such as AI, the discourse is often focused on new chips and other hardware for training LLMs and reducing ‘next-token latency.’ However, fiber-optic networks remain an integral part of today’s digital infrastructure, not only in terms of the data that flows between IT facilities but also back and forth to end users.

After launching its network in October 2023, Quantum Corridor has purportedly become the first Tier 1 network in North America to achieve a capacity of 40 terabits per second (Tbps), with a latency of 0.266 milliseconds. This is more than 1,000 times faster than commercial fiber internet speeds in the US, which are typically advertised in the single-digit Gbps range, and eclipses the national average internet speed, which was said to be around 170 Mbps last year.

Quantum Corridor said the network transmission milestone will allow data centers in the Midwest to better serve their customers across a range of sectors, including finance, defense, biotech, machine learning, and AI.

Turbocharged Networks

The news comes as researchers around the world are also working to achieve record-breaking network speeds. In late 2023, engineers in Japan achieved a jaw-dropping data transmission rate of 22.9 petabits per second (Pbps) through a single optical fiber, which would surpass global internet traffic by over 20 times per second.

Likewise, China recently launched what it claims to be the world's most advanced internet network with speeds of about 1.2 Tbps. The network, developed by Huawei and China Mobile in collaboration with Beijing's Tsinghua University and Cernet, uses 1,800 miles of optic fiber cables between Beijing and Guangzhou in the south.

"The expansion of Tier 1 networks is a very positive development,” says Jonathan Burnett, systems lead at Oxford Quantum Circuits, a UK-based quantum computing research company. “The improvements in connectivity and speed are impressive, and the aspiration for data rates is particularly exciting. Although these data rates might seem excessive compared to current classical demands, such as HD movie streaming, they are expected to be on par with the requirements of future large-scale error-corrected quantum computers."

Burnett, added: “Having an infrastructure that supports both research and development, as well as high-scale, end-to-end testing of network and data-handling equipment, is a very exciting prospect. [The] expansion of carrier connection, especially that which enables development on high throughput, is likely to act as a pulling force for future data center design and location.

Commercial Latency

Quantum Corridor predicts that the next generation of multi-terabit-per-second transfer speeds will help future-proof data networks from the anticipated surge in demand, for example, enabling the Department of Defense to transmit critical data more quickly and securely, as well as facilitating faster reaction times for autonomous vehicles.

“Between the decreased latency and sheer speed and size of the network, Quantum Corridor is able to satisfy more customers in data centers,” said Bill Winsininski,CEO and co-founder of Cofluence, a Chicago-based data center consultancy that has been involved in the Quantum Corridor project.

“Data center customers must have advanced data processing capabilities, including more powerful CPUs and GPUs, larger and faster memory systems, and potentially quantum compute resources to efficiently manage, store, and process vast amounts of data.”

While Quantum Corridor’s announcement is promising, some experts are somewhat circumspect about how rapidly the data center industry will benefit from this research.

“Although the results documented on Quantum Corridor’s network are blazing fast, it likely won’t be rolled out extensively anytime soon,” said Brendan Fitzpatrick, general manager for the US at Onnec, a data center and IT infrastructure provider.

“It takes time to commercialize emerging technology, and early deployments will likely be focused on research and development networks – and traditional long-haul bottlenecks like transcontinental links.”

Still, for Brown at 451 Research, faster and more secure speeds from Tier 1 providers will be a boon for the data center industry in the long-term. “The advancement and rollout of new quantum networks generally should bode well for the trajectory of quantum interconnection going forward,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Data Center Knowledge.

Summary

Energy and power usage are always key concerns for data center professionals, but water management is growing in importance. Regional water restrictions and rising demand for new cooling solutions have made water usage a key topic of late. In addition, the broader imperative of sustainability means data centers must manage water and reduce environmental impact.

AFCOM’s webinar of November 28 addressed these concerns. Carrie Goetz, Mikeal Vincent, Nolan Foran, and Ryan Gruver discussed the latest advancements in water usage and conservation efforts in the data center. They highlighted the need for innovative cooling technologies and sustainable solutions; the significance of community engagement, including cooperation with local municipalities; and a proactive approach to assessing and planning for future water needs.

Key Takeaways

• Citing the increasing water demand and strict water regulations in various regions, panelists encouraged professionals to explore and adopt water-efficient technologies and practices, like waterless cooling and gray water usage
• Due to the advent of AI, technologies like immersion cooling, direct-to-chip cooling, and using alternative cooling mediums (e.g., seawater, recycled water) are gaining attention, but the adoption of these technologies varies; many data centers still rely on traditional cooling methods
• There's a challenge in integrating new water-efficient technologies with existing infrastructure, mainly due to the high costs and complexities involved in replacing or retrofitting old equipment
• Water conservation and efficient usage are not only about compliance and operational efficiency, but also about being responsible global and local citizens who consider environmental impact
• Panelists called for data centers to collaborate with energy providers to explore renewable energy options
  

Collaboration between Data Centers and Local Municipalities

In some areas like Arizona, water restrictions have impacted building permits and project designs. The panelists discussed how data centers in such water-restricted jurisdictions can adapt to these challenges.

Gruver noted the policies in Chandler, Arizona reflect an industry trend: “they're shutting [new] data centers out.” Construction of new centers has been restrictive around areas that could have a potential groundwater impact. However, “on the positive side,” he said, “we have seen the large hyperscale organizations working with the Salt River project on some of that aquifer groundwater recharge.”

Our webinar panelists emphasized the importance of working with local communities, not just jurisdiction heads, in drought-stricken areas. Vincent recommended evaluating sustainable solutions based on the specific water risks and usage goals of each region. “When we talk about negotiating with cities, I think we need to think broadly about which sustainable solutions fit each jurisdiction,” Vincent said. She suggested that this may mean a mix of air and water cooling and the potential future use of immersion cooling. “Some of the local data centers are even looking into gray water solutions–how they can integrate gray water into their cooling systems and then just supplement with clean water,” Gruver added.

Some data centers are responding by evaluating their water usage effectiveness and making commitments to be “water-positive entities,” Foran said. This could mean working on other civil projects that are “water positive” or demonstrating that centers are conscious of their water usage by reducing footprint or discharge in their facilities.

Water Risk Assessments and Management Plans

Air cooling, immersion, and direct-to-chip are a few solutions that are adaptable to AI servers, but these technologies have yet to be successfully scaled and implemented. Because of this, water management plans, capacity planning, and risk mitigation are crucial.

Vincent highlighted a forecast produced by the Water Resources Group showing that global water demand will surpass sustainable use by 40% by 2030, stressing the need for a forward-looking approach to water management that anticipates future restrictions.

Vincent recommended conducting upfront water risk assessments to determine the allowable water consumptions for specific utilities in a given market. “You can develop a water management plan that looks at capacity and long-term usage to help mitigate the risks that you’ve identified; this can tie into your overall water goals,” she noted. Such a plan also “allows you to tie that into design for your data center” to further assist in understanding consumption. In turn, plans like these can help with cost and investment planning.

Gruver urged that data centers could lead the way in focusing on renewable energy, thereby saving water in both direct operations and energy generation. He suggested that data center operators should consider water usage across energy sources.

Adoption and Scaling of New Cooling Technologies

Because AI necessitates efficient cooling methods, many have noted that immersion cooling is the way of the future. However, technology adoption sometimes comes with limitations or thresholds for water usage.

Vincent noted that traditional cooling methods like chillers and evaporative cooling will likely continue to be used in the near-term. Foran agreed, noting that technology for mass-scale deployment of immersion cooling isn’t fully developed at this point. “We’ve seen Microsoft do some interesting things with the submersibles, where they build a data center in a small submarine and submerge it,” Foran illustrated. Some techniques like this are being reviewed, “but as far as being able to deploy them in a large hyperscale operation with hundreds of megawatts, it’s just not scalable at this point.”

Gruver expects that as heat loads and power densities increase, there will be more adoption of technologies like direct-to-chip and immersion cooling. However, data centers will have to decide precisely how adoption occurs. “Let’s say you’re a DCO trying to retrofit a live data hall with some of this technology,” he said. “I’d be a little concerned about [this] affecting production.” He suggested a hybrid approach that marks out a new area of the data center for retrofitting some of the existing infrastructure.

Assessing Older Equipment with an Eye to Cooling Innovations

Even a hybrid integration approach means assessing older equipment. As data centers transition away from evaporative cooling towards more water-efficient methods, the challenge is finding that balance between adopting new cooling technologies and managing the costs and limitations of older equipment.

Panelists agreed that the shift from evaporative cooling is happening but is not uniform across the industry. Even though it’s possible to get rid of older equipment, "generally it's consolidated into some more massive infrastructure,” Gruver said. At present, Gruver is working on new designs, and yet “I'm still focused on air-cooled chilling right now." He expects a gradual transition to new cooling technologies.

Vincent, who doesn’t usually deal with legacy equipment, believes that due to cost considerations, immersion cooling will likely be more prevalent in new data centers or new halls, rather than being retrofitted to existing equipment.

Rainwater Capture as Water Management Strategy

Panelists agreed that rainwater capture isn’t a primary decision maker, but it can supplement water from municipal utilities.

Gruver commented that in areas where there is a lack of significant rainfall, rainwater capture won’t be a significant factor for data center operations, even in areas where data centers continue to be built.

Foran wants to see more rainwater harvesting, especially in facilities outside arid climates where normal precipitation occurs. In his view, this is an area for improvement in water management strategies; he stated that rainwater harvesting is not as prevalent as it could be.

For Vincent, investment is needed for rainwater capture and treatment. Rainwater capture can help with stormwater runoff pollutants, and Vincent suggested its usefulness for non-potable purposes like irrigation or flushing. “It's an investment that you'll need: to put in rainwater capture, the storage tanks, and the treatment system to be able to reuse it."

AFCOM has made a full recording of this webinar available to AFCOM members. To view it, simply click here.

Summary

There is a shortage of skilled workers and new talent entering the data center industry. Meanwhile, those interested in beginning a data center career don’t always know what to do first. Even for professionals already working in the industry, the career path is not always clear. It can be difficult to discern where to earn certifications and which training is fundamental for career growth.

To address these problems, AFCOM hosted a webinar about how to advance your data center career through training and certifications. Joseba Calvo, Managing Partner at EPI Americas, presented a framework to help attendees navigate their path to data center certification. A panel of industry leaders – Joseba Calvo, Michelle Reed, Jacques Fluet, Bill Winsininski, and Matthew O’Hare – developed the discussion, sharing their experiences with continuing education and EPI certification programs. With its new partnership with EPI Americas, AFCOM is offering a 15% discount on EPI training and certification programs.

Key Takeaways

• Training and certifications based on international standards are important for credibility and transferable skills
• A combination of hands-on experience, vendor-agnostic training, and standards certifications produces well-rounded data center professionals and teams
• Existing certifications like EPI’s courses are helpful foundational certificates that confer credibility on those wanting to enter the industry or grow within it
• Companies should provide consistent internal training programs and career development for every employee, and this training should be based on industry standards, not just vendor products
• Data centers need to engage students and talent pipelines early to address the workforce shortage. More awareness of the industry and its career paths is needed
• Data center courses, certifications, and career pathways should be connected to high school, community colleges, and universities to attract the interest of younger students and provide training for them
  

EPI Courses Offer Training Pathways

“We need more people and we need to improve the performance and the skills of people already working in the industry,” said Joseba Calvo, Managing Partner at EPI Americas, as he began his presentation.
Calvo has built more than 200 modular data centers and has brought new talent into the industry to improve data centers.

He highlighted a crucial insight: “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”

To develop this point, Calvo displayed two key questions:

Typically, a CFO will ask: What if we train our people and they LEAVE?

Theoretically, it’s expensive to train people.

But the CEO may then ask: What if we don’t train people and they STAY?

It is a risk for every person and every center if industry professionals aren’t trained, noted Calvo. And because of how the industry is shifting, these points are especially relevant (see our recent webinar on “The New Era of Security”).

Data center operators must consider key questions related to ignorance and trust, and for Calvo, these questions can be grouped around a center’s Product, Process, and People:

• Product: How do I know that my facilities and my center are operating according to baseline expectations? How do I know what that baseline is?
• Process: You have infrastructure, but how do you manage the data center? What are your processes and procedures?
• People: How do you make sure that you have people with the right skills and competencies?
  

Assessing Competencies

To avoid risks and downtime, you must know the competencies of your workers and ensure they know their own competency levels. Calvo suggested that individual professionals should consider where we are on this scale:

1. Unconscious Competence (you don’t know your own ignorance and won’t be able to react)
2. Conscious Incompetence (you know that you don’t know; you need to grow)
3. Conscious Competence (you can manage things properly and minimize human error)
4. Unconscious Competence (very skilled; you know things by heart; very competent → a level of competence we aspire to)

“With humility,” Calvo said, “we can achieve excellence.” To avoid human error, “people need training so that the right level of expert with the right competencies is addressing the proper problem.”

Calvo pointed out the other key element here: “it’s also very important to have the metrics showing what resources you actually have.” He offered an analogy: “It’s not a question of ‘I have the Tom Brady of my data center.’ Okay, great. Tom Brady is amazing, but what happens if Tom Brady retires? Or is sick? What do you do?”

Metrics should show the level of expertise of each professional and which competencies they have available at what time. With this information, you can complete the proper operations, procedures, and processes to avoid human error.

How to Build Competency

Calvo then raised relevant follow-up questions: With all the hundreds of types of training programs out there, where do we turn? Which direction do we take? He voiced another assumption that might resonate: “Everybody does this training, so it won’t benefit me.”

Calvo countered this. “‘Does everybody do it?’ – this isn’t the right question,” he said. For him, our questions should actually be, “What is my current position? What is the future position I want to achieve?”

Identifying answers to these questions will help you grow. And for data center owners and leaders, these questions will also help you keep valuable people: “If you have good people, they want to learn. If you offer training, those people will stay because they get more training and more professional career development.”

Calvo then introduced the competency and training matrix used by EPI and now offered with a discount by AFCOM for members. The framework shows which skills and competencies correspond with each position, and which skills and competencies each worker needs to advance into other positions. It also shows how competencies align with specific tasks.

“With this,” Calvo said, “you can build a Data Center Career Plan for each person, each job position on your team–and there are more than 38 of these in a given data center.” Calvo displayed a sample Career Plan for a Data Center Manager, showing the work that she does; her responsibilities; the KPIs; the main tasks; the required training that this person should take; and additional “Added Value” courses that would give her the option of excellence.

Calvo recommends doing this for all positions in a given center. “And this goes for those we want to bring into the data center industry.” Developing a Career Plan for new data center professionals shows them that “we have a plan; we have training for you; and we will help you grow.”

Towards the end of his presentation, Calvo highlighted three free resources for AFCOM members:

1. DCCF (Data Centre Competence Framework)
2. Data Center Training Quick Guide
3. DCPT (Data Center Career Planning Tool)

Panelists' Personal Experiences with Education and Training

The team of speakers then began to discuss their own experiences with education and training.

Matthew O’Hare detailed his career evolution from the early 2000s, when his focus was on telecommunications. His work led him to obtain his RCDD, and over time, he shifted toward a more holistic approach to building design and construction, emphasizing efficiency. He then focused on obtaining a LEED AP credential. As he learned more about the comprehensive aspects of data center management, it became essential to understand every facet of the building process, including the shell, operations, and efficiency.

Here, O’Hare said, a program like the one offered by EPI is crucial because it is standards-based and covers the holistic aspect of data centers. He started with the CDCP and eventually turned to the CDCS. This program helped him to grasp the necessary calculations and other technical aspects of data center engineering.

Bill Winsininski noted that the experience of working in this profession isn’t just the data centers in which you work; “it’s about the data centers of your customers and the applications of your customers, how it resonates with your data center, how you mitigate that risk.”

“I fell in love with this industry by going on data center tours and seeing how all the disparate components fit together–and then learning how to take that information to mitigate risk with tenants,” Winsininski added, urging that if you touch the data center in any capacity, “starting some of these classes will help you gain more confidence with your narrative and will help you understand how all these things fit together.”

O’Hare reiterated the importance of standards-based training beyond vendor-based training. “These vendor certifications on a product and how it works within the holistic data center environment are important,” said O’Hare, “but they don’t get into how the other systems play into it; you’re not hearing from other systems manufacturers.”

For Jacques Fluet, understanding standards is crucial, even though they can be quite dry and technical. “I had a career change between the telecom industry and the data center industry about five years ago,” Fluet continued. “For me, it was great to attend the classes just to learn the new lingo and to understand the terms–and like Bill [Winsininski] was saying, to be able to ask the right questions with the right words when talking to people. Because data centers have their own language, you have to learn those new things every time you change industries.”


AFCOM has made a full recording of this webinar available to AFCOM members. To view it, simply click here.

Cloud storage firm Impossible Cloud just opened a data center in Germany. It claims that its design helps it deliver cloud services 75% cheaper than competitors. Let's look at how it achieves this.

Impossible Cloud operates four data centers across North America and Europe. Current locations include facilities in Los Angeles, New York and Frankfurt, Germany

“We are rapidly increasing our global footprint and continually expanding by opening more facilities,” said Daniel Baker, CTO & Co-Founder of Impossible Cloud.

In addition, the company leverages colocation centers that are optimized for increased performance and low latency. The number of servers per data center is 13, and these are spread across multiple racks.

Baker added that the company only works with top-tier data centers with demanding requirements concerning the data centers they are allowed to use. They typically only want to work with facilities that can demonstrate compliance with regulations and international standards such as ISO27001, SOC-2, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO22301, NIST 800-53/FI, PCI DSS and others. In addition, Impossible Cloud centers feature N+1 power and cooling redundancy.

The New German Facility

Its first German data center, located in Frankfurt, is said to be optimized for maximum security, performance and ease-of-use for cloud storage. As well as complying with the various international standards, it includes a proprietary orchestration and security software layer. This introduces features such as triple encryption; multi-factor authentication (MFA); and cross-origin resource sharing (CORS).

“CORS is designed to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and other types of malicious activity,” said Baker.

Another feature, one shared between its many data centers, is the avoidance of data concentration in one geography. Impossible Cloud’s decentralized nature means data stored has no single point of failure.

Additionally, the data center is designed to integrate with just about any other technology stack in use by its customers. This can usually be accomplished, according to Baker, by inputting one line of code. To simplify the transfer of large amounts of data, the company provides a migration tool and technical support to streamline a move of existing data sets stored with vendors, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and other providers.

Dealing with Privacy and Data Sovereignty

Data sovereignty has become a hot topic. As well as the European General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), there are similar laws in other geographies around the world.

“Cloud storage may impact data sovereignty regulations for which a corporation is legally responsible,” said Rich Gadomski, Tape Evangelist at Fujifilm Recording Media USA.

When the cloud is involved, it is common for data to be shunted anywhere for the sake of convenience. But violations are no laughing matter if you are caught engaging in the illegal movement of data out of the region. GDPR fines, for example, now exceed 4 billion Euros. Most of that is recent, indicating that regulators have stepped up detection and prosecution efforts. Meta/Facebook got hit, for example, with more than 2 billion Euros in fines in 2023 alone so far.

Due to its European origins and customer base, Impossible Cloud puts a lot of emphasis on systems to ensure compliance with the GDPR. For clients who require it, the company implements geo-fencing to ensure their data is stored within the EU (or, if required even only within Germany).

“This is our way of guaranteeing cloud autonomy in accordance with the European Data Alliance’s goals,” said Baker.

Storage Infrastructure

The company offers enterprise-grade, native cloud storage that is said to deliver the capabilities of traditional cloud storage. This Kubernetes-friendly, AWS S3-compatible object storage is available throughout Europe and in other regions, with more than 8 petabytes of initial raw storage capacity, access to further enterprise data centers, and durability beyond 11 nines.

Further features include versioning, object lock, immutability for retention of all stored files in their original version, as well as programmatic identity access management (IAM) which allows for the creation of multiple users, access keys, sub-users and groups via API/CLI.

Baker believes object storage is better than block or file storage for large volumes of data in the cloud.

“Object storage offers nearly infinite scaling at higher performance as well as the ability for clients to adjust their storage capacity based on actual need along with the benefits of decentralized web3 technology,” he said.

In addition, Impossible Cloud can help companies switch from web2 to web3 via a single line of code. Baker added that web3 is about flexibility, efficiency and greater control. This is enabled via a decentralized infrastructure, where the location and ownership of data are dispersed among many, rather than a few.

“With hardware/infrastructure owned and maintained by many, a decentralized web3 solution enables us to reduce our capital expenditures, translating to lowered costs for end users, sometimes up to 75% in savings,” said Baker.

The company offers enterprise-grade, native cloud storage that is said to deliver the capabilities of traditional cloud storage This Kubernetes-friendly, AWS S3-compatible object storage is available throughout Europe and in other regions, with more than 8 petabytes of initial raw storage capacity, access to further enterprise data centers, and durability beyond 11 nines.

Further features include versioning, object lock, immutability for retention of all stored files in their original version, as well as programmatic identity access management (IAM) which allows for the creation of multiple users, access keys, sub-users and groups via API/CLI.

Baker believes object storage is better than block or file storage for large volumes of data in the cloud.

“Object storage offers nearly infinite scaling at higher performance as well as the ability for clients to adjust their storage capacity based on actual need along with the benefits of decentralized web3 technology,” he said.

In addition, Impossible Cloud can help companies switch from web2 to web3 via a single line of code. Baker added that web3 is about flexibility, efficiency and greater control. This is enabled via a decentralized infrastructure, where the location and ownership of data are dispersed among many, rather than a few.

“With hardware/infrastructure owned and maintained by many, a decentralized web3 solution enables us to reduce our capital expenditures, translating to lowered costs for end users, sometimes up to 75% in savings,” said Baker.

Please keep an eye out for the next release of “Consider This."

On June 8th, AFCOM’s very own SoCal Chapter presented a dynamic webinar on the latest findings from two of the industry’s biggest conferences.

At the webinar’s start, President Jason Shepard highlighted the sheer diversity and “full variety” of users who make up the AFCOM SoCal community—namely, corporate users from enterprise data centers; members of hyperscalers, or the “Facebooks and Googles of the World”; and third-party operators, or those belonging to multi-tenant facilities—all of whom are united in their common bond to learn about the latest trends and technologies that will affect the industry. AFCOM SoCal’s diverse composition is reflected in the diversity of enterprise corporations throughout California, which includes a strong showing of biotech, business, real estate, and media.

While Shepard asserted that business remains robust throughout California, the industry is still affected by talent shortages and skills gaps. Enter: Diane “Di” Krehbiel-Johnson, who is deeply involved in Executive & Technology recruiting. Krehbiel-Johnson first noted the specific roles that have the highest current demand; namely, executive, HR, systems and network administration, project engineering, security, and help desk jobs. Furthermore, the rising demand of AI should in turn create a rising demand for more AI-oriented jobs. She then shared a few critical tips in allowing your application to stand out from others, including modifying your resume to reflect the language found in the original job posting, developing an “elevator pitch” to immediately advertise your skills, and much more.

The AFCOM SoCal Board first presented these topics within the specific context of California’s data center industry. They then zoomed out to discuss how these trends were presented and discussed at Pacific Telecom Council (PTC) 2023 and Data Center World (DCW) 2023, which are two of the biggest data center conferences across the nation, inviting employees from various countries to witness what lies in store for the future of data centers.

Common Key Takeaways

First, Shepard and Greg Stover indicated the shared themes that each conference discussed in detail:

• Sustainability/ESG Initiatives
  
• Supply Chain Setbacks
  
• Cloud/Edge/Hybrid Models/Repatriation
  
• AI/ChatGPT/Virtual Reality
  

Clearly, as seen in the topics above, there was a healthy mixture of looking at immediate solutions to the present’s most pressing issues, while also keeping one eye cocked towards the future of technology and our industry’s environmental impact.

“There’s a couple things that seem to show up at every conference we attend,” Stover explained. “The good news is that data center demand continues far beyond any of our explanations. However, it’s also driving some serious issues. For example, sustainability and ESG initiatives absolutely remain top of mind. While CEOs are standing up and saying ‘we’re going to be carbon-neutral by such-and-such date,’ people are starting to peel back the onion and ask exactly how we’re going to get there.” Stover further described the increase in energy usage caused by people’s continued reliance on connectivity and other technologies, as well as the struggles the industry has taken in terms of “doing more with less.”

While Stover indicated that the supply chain shortages have improved, “they’re not even close to fixed.” In particular, Stover noted that electricity, generators, chillers, and fans still remain scarce. Products have been affected due to isolated problems caused by a lack of boards and chips. “Right when you think you’ve got something fixed, a week later you realize it’s not fixed,” he emphasized.

Fortunately, these issues surrounding the supply chain may in fact be a blessing in disguise; it’s forced the industry to collaborate more closely, for example, or partner with other companies to avoid costly delays. According to Stover, “If you delay a day, it’ll cost you a week. Delay a week, it’ll cost you a month. Delay a month, it’ll cost you a quarter.” It’s clear that companies are innovating and taking the necessary steps to increase transparency and foster connections in order to avoid these outcomes.

Bill Kleyman then took the stage to offer his insights on the latest developments in cloud, edge, and hybrid models. However, he first emphasized just how much connectivity has been developed in recent years. “One of the most interesting things we saw at PTC was just how much new cable (terrestrial and underwater) is being laid down in emerging markets,” he explained. Specifically, South America, Canada, and Asia have seen tremendous growth in connectivity, not to mention the growth of data center construction itself.

This growth is necessary to match the seemingly exponential increase in demand of AI-centric technologies like ChatGPT, Kleyman stated, which itself demands so much more energy than most other quickly adopted technologies. Citing statistics from AFCOM’s 2023 “State of the Data Center” report, Kleyman noted that a single ChatGPT session is roughly 50-100x more powerful than a Google search, consuming about 3-4kWh of energy per use.

AFCOM SoCal’s presentation accurately described the current highs and lows affecting the industry. While it’s clear the industry is poised to experience tremendous growth in the coming years, it must also contend with issues such as NIMBYism, skills gaps, supply chain shortages, and carbon reductions.

Fortunately, thanks to webinars like this and other educational materials provided by AFCOM’s local chapters, the data center industry is more than ready to meet the challenges to come, and find further opportunities to expand and optimize the many benefits it provides across the globe.

Click here to access the full recording and presentation.

This June, AFCOM’s Potomac Chapter joined forces with Northern Virginia Community College to kick off its annual summer internship program, designed to bridge the gap between higher education and the data center industry. At its Internship Orientation event, 20 students were selected to be full-time interns, all of whom will spend the summer working at 18 different sponsoring companies in the data center community.

Five years ago, only one intern participated when AFCOM inaugurated its Summer Internship Program. Now, according to program organizers Stuart Dyer and TJ Ciccone, both of whom serve leadership roles in the AFCOM Potomac Chapter, the program has grown by nearly 100% year-over-year since its inception—thanks to tight coordination of the AFCOM Education Committee, comprised of Phil Baroody, Pat Lally, and Caroline Teitelbaum. This team of five volunteers their time and effort to raise money through sponsorships, organize documentation, and create templates to track interns’ learning objectives throughout the program’s duration.

In their press release, the AFCOM Education Committee acknowledged that the success of AFCOM Potomac’s Summer Internship Program is also largely due to its collaboration with Northern Virginia (NOVA) Community College. The college “continues to be on the leading edge of providing unique employment opportunities to students through its DCO program, which focuses on data center operations,” said Ciccone.

“NOVA’s Information and Engineering Technology (IET) Division has been fortunate to partner with such an effective and passionate chapter of AFCOM,” said Jack Bidlack, Director of Strategic Initiatives for IET at NOVA. “The Potomac Chapter is actively involved with our DCO programs by sponsoring more than 24 paid internship opportunities over the last four years for our students, with the number of internship offerings doubling year-over-year. Our partnership with the AFCOM Potomac Chapter has furthered student achievement, connected the college with multiple industry partners, and provided equitable pathways for students towards an exciting innovative career.”

Building Bridges

This collaboration between AFCOM Potomac and NOVA CC to encourage and enable more students to join the data center community serves to counteract the skills gap and talent shortage issues that have affected the industry—and the world of tech at large. In AFCOM’s 2023 “5 Bold Predictions” whitepaper, industry experts predicted that this year would be dominated by hiring challenges, even while many skills remain in high demand. In particular, the report acknowledged the difficulties that data center companies have faced in adding diversity to their workforce: the current attrition rate for women in data centers is 67%, for example, and a third of the current data center workforce will gray out by 2025.

In an article by Data Center Knowledge, AFCOM Program Chair Bill Kleyman said that a critical method to reduce this skills gap is by “creating awareness of the data center sector among the younger generation” via extensive outreach to universities. The article also mentions that current employees at data center companies may leave their jobs due to a lack of budget for training and other professional development opportunities.

AFCOM Potomac and NOVA CC’s Summer Internship Program seeks to overcome these two key obstacles by not only bringing data center companies to the university’s doorstep, but also by reducing any costs accrued during a student’s education and internship. Through AFCOM’s Wendy Darling Scholarship, any NOVA CC student who enrolls in the ENE195 (Introduction to Data Center Operations) course can attend at no charge. Upon enrollment, students are also eligible for entry into the Summer Internship Program, which is an 11-week, $20/hr. paid internship within the data center community. Program leaders Dyer and Ciccone remarked that approximately 70% of students who are accepted into the internship program have since found full-time employment in the industry.

This program shows no signs of stopping. In June, AFCOM raised enough money from the community to fund both the Summer Internship Program and Wendy Darling Scholarship Fund at $25,000 for another year, and have even considered establishing an endowment in the near future. According to Dyer and Ciccone, the largest supplier of funding to the program is NOVA Community College, whose grant program has enabled AFCOM to scale this program year after year. Other sponsors include Aligned Data Centers, CompuDynamics, Coresite, CPG, CyrusOne, Iron Mountain, Primary Integration, Sabey Data Centers, Stack Infrastructure, Digital Realty Trust, Google, Iconix, IES, NTI, WE Bowers, B&S Site Development, Prime Data Centers, and Vantage Data Centers.

“I get an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about the NOVA CC program, the sponsors that support us, and from those that want to be involved,” said Ciccone. “Every conference I attend, meeting I go to, and panel I watch, everyone is talking about the need for more data center talent. The next step would be to make this sort of experience, from both a schooling and internship perspective, national. Many organizations right now are working with their local colleges to try and do just that."

Summary

Look: there’s no “official” theme for AFCOM’s annual Data Center World conference, which was held this year in Austin, Texas. Nevertheless, because the data center industry itself is constantly attuned to the latest trends, emerging technologies, and breaking news from the world of tech at large, it’s inevitable that some concepts would break from the pack and begin to dominate the conversation.

This year, throughout the Data Center BUILD sessions, sustainability continued to gain traction, as leaders in data center construction across the globe gathered to discuss the cutting-edge methods—such as SMR adoption and analysis of newfound Scope 4 emissions—with which we can construct sustainable data centers and foster a greener industry. In the DCIM workshop on Monday morning, AFCOM Phoenix Chapter President Ryan Gruver donned a pair of A/R glasses to witness firsthand just how AR/VR technology could radically transform daily operations in the data center. And, in Tuesday’s keynote, presented by Burcin Kaplanoglu, Vice President of Oracle, we learned the myriad ways in which automation and robotics could be used to leverage data and facilitate faster data-driven solutions.

Yet, above all else, what emerged as a clear theme throughout DCW 2023 was “connectivity.” No, not just “connectivity” in the technical sense, in which one data center within a company “communicates” to another, but “connectivity” on a grander, more human scale—in which companies and their representatives chat amongst other, find critical opportunities to collaborate, and work together as an industry to find solutions to the world’s most pressing issues.

“We’re here to build a community,” Omdia chief analyst Roy Illsley said at the start of Monday’s DC BUILD sessions. Indeed, this ideal community that conferences like DCW hopes to galvanize would include a newfound diversity of people, which subsequently would bring about a newfound diversity of perspectives. Or, as DCI Board Member Ron Vokoun put it: “New people, new ideas.”

And, it should be added: new connections. Throughout this week, I heard time and time again that a recurring highlight for many DCW attendees was the vital chance to “meet new people.” This—this is why we had so many sold-out keynotes, and why so many panels quickly became a “standing room only” affair. Not just the chance to try out the latest tech, or to collect free swag as attendees, but the opportunity to connect with people both within and outside of AFCOM, to form bonds and share best practices so that we can excel, innovate, and evolve as an industry—together.

"We're only looking at part of the story"

"The room is always smarter than the individual"

Powering up the industry

Ahead of her keynote panel at AFCOM Data Center World 2023 in Austin, we met with Rebecca Weekly from Cloudflare to get her perspective on our connected industry. Weekly leads the organization that builds Cloudflare's compute, network, and storage hardware systems. Together, they shape Cloudflare's development strategy to meet internal and external customer needs as they deliver over 20% of the world's Internet traffic.

At Data Center World this year, Weekly's fireside keynote will explore how data, connectivity, and new compute-heavy workloads (think ChatGPT) are changing and modernizing data center infrastructure. In her keynote, we'll explore how leaders can prepare for a more connected, data-driven future.

Be sure to join us for a fantastic session!

AFCOM: How would you describe the current state of the talent gap that has impacted the data center industry? What steps can data centers take now to mitigate this labor crunch?

Rebecca Weekly: With the current economic situation, we have been seeing an easing of the "talent gaps" since around December of 2022. Fundamentally though, this is a long game -- we must continue to educate and develop talent to ensure that our talent pools don't fluctuate with the economic conditions, up to and including leveraging increased automation and AI to automate any tasks possible.

Fundamentally, too, much infrastructure education (predominantly DevOps) has been assumed by large cloud providers (AWS Certified, Azure Certified, etc.) versus neutral strong sources looking across the domain space with an eye toward how to optimize for workloads themselves.

Increasing communities are trying to step up here (Linux Foundation, Open Compute Project, MOC Cloud Alliance, etc.) and universities, of course, but this is a significant gap for creating a diverse and thoughtful talent pool. We need significantly more debate and discussion versus indoctrination to various vendor-centric approaches if we want a growing and discerning community of developers. Then again, most businesses care about time-to-results versus learning, so I believe this has to come from developers and academic institutions themselves versus assuming that any vendor will truly sponsor this work.

AFCOM: What emerging trends should data center operators pay closer attention to in 2023?

Rebecca Weekly: AI is the easy on here: increased automation of knobs/tuning for optimal performance and power consumption based on dynamic load conditions, automation of DC "healing" (reboots, firmware updates, etc. to resolve server and network issues without requiring direct human interaction), dynamic workload placement, generation of testing suites based on high-level descriptions. None of this is new per se, but it is clearly exploding. Even more interesting is how we see silicon development starting to leverage ChatGPT.

Of course, this, too, was foreseen by AI gurus such as Jeff Dean (although that was a specific time-consuming issue associated with manufacturable layouts versus generative AI for the higher-level logic). Other domains where I see key trends specifically relevant to operators are around sustainability: active power, temperature/performance throttling for better dynamic use of power, green power sources, better heat reuse methodologies. We as an industry must invest here, and it is not just a Silicon and Systems investment, it requires standardization of management and facilities so we can create better commercial incentives to align with sustainable use cases.

For example, many contracts are flat for space, power, and connectivity regardless of the actual usage -- this creates no incentive to optimize utilization of power by load and means no company will invest even though that would be ideal for the environment. We need to change these economics and reward customers for their optimizations to see real change. This may be a place where regulation (like we saw on home devices with power idling requirements when appliances were not in use) could be valuable.

AFCOM: What should the data center industry do to encourage and bolster a more diverse workforce?

Rebecca Weekly: There has been much written about this -- diversity comes from a host of sources (background, education, gender, race, religion, culture), and the most definitive research I have seen is that the only way to change the outcome is to break out from "who you know." Most companies reward recommendations, which indicates that people who have worked together before will continue to work together and will inevitably bring in more people like them. If you institute enough diversity at the top, then this could theoretically trickle down.

Still, we have less diversity in senior levels of management, engineering, etc. (28% gender diversity in the tech industry broadly, but only 15% in engineering), so recommendations are often the worst way to ensure we have diversity. One of the best programs I ever saw was incentivizing the additional investment in recruiting diverse hires by creating programs that gave "free headcount," at least for the first year, to any manager bringing in under-represented minorities to the company.

We need to lower the risk of hiring so that managers have the incentive to take risks and go out of their comfort zone. There are other methodologies as well (hiring committees, removing "identifying" content from resumes, standardizing the questions, doing "buddy" interviews) that can normalize bias. This is rarely implemented systematically, but it dramatically impacts moving numbers.

AFCOM: What recent sustainability trends have made you the most excited?

Rebecca Weekly: Many. First, standards (so we can actually start communicating and comparing across the complexity here). I mentioned before dynamic power modeling and more knobs from Silicon to systems to be able to tune performance and power dynamically (ideally with AI and correlation to workload placement), heat reuse methodologies (powering cities from servers), and exposure to end users for more dynamic choice (for example, do you want to watch this in high-definition and take six times the power, or is the standard definition "good enough" given you are watching on mobile).

Fundamentally, service owners usually try to compete with higher performance and higher quality. Still, suppose we add the lens of sustainability. In that case, we may actually see consumer behavior change (because they may not want "the best" if it is worse for the earth, and there is no way vendors will be comfortable making those investments until they know the market wants it).

AFCOM: What are you the most excited to see or do at DCW?

Rebecca Weekly: This is my first Data Center World! In general, I always want to hear the range of pain points and solutions folks are experimenting with so we can engage in understanding where standardization can help drive solutions.

We’re excited to hear from Weekly and our other excellent speakers at this year’s AFCOM Data Center World conference. See you in Austin!

This syndicated article was originally published on Data Center Knowledge. To read the original article, please click here.

I’ve known Dr. Burcin Kaplanoglu for a number of years and calling him an industry visionary would be an understatement. His perspective on our industry is why I am so excited to have him keynote our conference. Ahead of his featured keynote talk at AFCOM Data Center World 2023 in Austin, we met with Kaplanoglu, from Oracle to get his perspective on our connected industry. Kaplanoglu is a recognized industry technologist, innovator, thought leader, and keynote speaker. He is leading innovation for the Oracle Vertical Industries and is the Co-Founder of Oracle Industry Labs.

At Data Center World this year, Kaplanoglu's keynote will dive into the latest innovations and trials with robotics in the data center, how data is being used to bring capacity online faster and far more sustainably, and how data-driven solutions will impact the future of the data center.

Be sure to join us for a fantastic session! And now, a chat with Kaplanoglu.

AFCOM: How would you describe the current state of the talent gap that has impacted the data center industry? What steps can data centers take now to mitigate this labor crunch?

Burcin Kaplanoglu: This talent shortage is being felt across industries, and the data center industry is no different. Data center workers are at the heart of how things get done, and they play a fundamental role in helping businesses thrive in a changing market landscape. The community needs diverse professionals who can support global digital expansion and new roles that will be created in step with emerging technologies and evolving trends in the industry.

Some of the activities at a data center can be repetitive. Companies are increasingly turning to automation to manage some of the common data center processes, including monitoring, repair, and app delivery, to help increase data center productivity and adaptability. This can help mitigate the lack of labor entering the industry, as well as the loss of institutional knowledge that occurs when members of the workforce retire.

AFCOM: What emerging trends should data center operators pay closer attention to in 2023?

Burcin Kaplanoglu: Data centers will need to support the growing adoption of cloud technology. As more people spend more time online, and as AI and machine learning is more widely adopted, data centers will need to support demand with additional servers and low-latency connectivity options. The intense nature of AI and machine learning workloads will need larger amounts of data processing than previous conventional methods, necessitating a shift in data center architecture. This will include more sophisticated cooling systems to accommodate the higher output, as well as increased amounts of computational, memory, and storage resources over a large number of computers.

Data centers will simultaneously be called to use greener technologies that can help support their sustainably goals.

AFCOM: What recent sustainability trends have made you the most excited?

Burcin Kaplanoglu: Most companies by now have outlined their environmental, social, and governance goals, detailing how they plan to move to greener technologies and help curb climate change. Looking forward, some industries are not only looking to meet those goals, but to exceed them. To help assist in that process, we recently built an Oracle Industry Lab in Reading, England, focused on achieving higher levels of sustainability. The lab is set to drive sustainability, mobility, and accessibility use cases with customers and partners.

Intelligent technology platforms that utilize AI and machine learning and are purpose-built for industries can help improve decision-making. Combined with the increased adoption of automation, this will improve operational efficiency, help mitigate risks, and assist in lowering carbon emissions. These technologies can help reduce waste and costly repetition or rework by visualizing the end result before work begins.

Companies have constantly been looking for ways to make their businesses more sustainable, and data analysis can be part of the solution. Data analytics can change how work is completed across industries, helping companies streamline processes and making them more efficient.

Data can help teams measure the sustainability of current methods and leverage those insights to show sustainability throughout the entire work process. When employed correctly, data can play a large role in propelling industries toward long-term sustainable development methods.

AFCOM: What are you the most excited to see or do at DCW?

Burcin Kaplanoglu: I’m most looking forward to spending time with customers and other leaders in the industry. It is a one-of-a-kind forum where it will be exciting to discuss industry trends. I will be presenting how robots and AI will change digital infrastructure, and introducing the Oracle Industry Lab and some of the key use cases that we have developed, from construction to operations.

This syndicated article was originally published on Data Center Knowledge. To read the original article, please click here.