AFCOM members can download the full report here or watch a recording of our State of the Data Center 2026 webinar.   

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Members-Only Exclusives:

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VIEW WEBINAR RECORDING

Want to see the full whitepaper? Become an AFCOM member today to download the report.

The 5 bold predictions outlined in 2025's whitepaper and accompanying one-sheet were developed through collaboration with AFCOM’s Data Center Institute, whose members bring decades of collective experience across a wide range of disciplines. These predictions explore where the industry is headed next, including the rise of AI-first infrastructure, the changing role of education, the growing urgency around sustainability, and how regulations and automation will impact operations and staffing.

While the future remains unpredictable, these insights are meant to help data center leaders think more critically about what’s coming and start preparing now.

DOWNLOAD THE SUMMARY

AFCOM members can download the full report here or watch a recording of our State of the Data Center 2025 webinar.   

DOWNLOAD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Members-Only Exclusives:

DOWNLOAD Full REPORT

VIEW WEBINAR RECORDING

Want to see the full whitepaper? Become an AFCOM member today to download the report.

The 5 bold predictions outlined in 2024's whitepaper and accompanying one-sheet were provided after extensive dialogue with members of the Data Center Institute, who are considered key experts in the field and represent over 200 collective years of experience. The predictions encompass a wide swathe of concerns and factors that will affect the industry in the years to come, including: the effects of AI on GPUs, HPC, and the cloud; the potential demise on two-phase immersion cooling; whether or not lithium batteries will retain industry traction; why new workloads may not require a complete data center redesign; and much more.

While there is no “one size fits all” approach to tackling these issues, the advice offered by the DCI members within these downloadable materials will allow operators and managers from data centers of any size to develop a suitable plan of attack that will best address their own needs and goals for 2024.

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SUMMARY

Raymond Parpart first sought out DEEP's services after The University of Chicago notified him that his data centers had shot up in terms of their overall power usage, from #12 to the campus' fourth-largest consumer of energy. "Everybody said, 'What is going on?'" Parpart explained. "We need to figure out how to improve this."

The University of Chicago has six separate data centers spread across three separate buildings, all of which belong as part of the university’s 132-year-old campus. Despite ostensible concerns about the older infrastructure surrounding these data centers, however, it became clear that the data center staff wanted their sustainability practices to be as up-to-date as possible.

We spoke with Parpart to learn more about the unorthodox methods his team used to enhance his data centers' sustainability, and how a DEEP certification highlighted areas of improvement to further improve efficiency..

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