Five Key Trends to Watch in Data Centers during 2024

Power

This is a geographic neutral problem; all regions/countries are experiencing tensions over power supply and power generation source. You do not have to read or scan places such as LinkedIn or tech news feeds to see that this is one of the major concerns.

However, certain technologies continue to be promoted as the panacea for all power problems. This is no easy or instant fix for this. Any new power generation source will take time to implement and often even longer to connect to the grid. The electric grid in most geographies is aging, with little investment over the last few years. Difficulties in getting planning permissions delays new overhead or underground lines for years. The supporting infrastructure needs additional upgrading to be able to support increased load, often in locations where data centers have previously not been located.

2024 is likely to see a rise in on-site generation of power, as data center owners attempt to guarantee power for tenants; the facility itself requires very little power; it’s the IT within the facility that requires power. We are starting to see on-site power plants, often fuelled by gas or gas powered fuel cells, which must be viewed as a step along the way to reducing carbon. Other power generation technologies such as hydrogen and SNR’s are probably 10 years away from either implementation or being available at scale through a ‘green provision’.

To be able to contain the power requirements there are areas that need to be urgently addressed, such as the efficiency of IT servers, doing more transactions with less power and tight coding. One way is by the use of application sleep states in addition to the sever sleep states. If the apps are built with power conservation in mind, this will reduce the power draw from the grid, without harming the use of the application.

Cooling

With increased power there is an obviously a need for increased and more efficient cooling solutions to be able to transfer the heat being produced to another use. There are many different means of cooling data center facilities, the primary means has been by chilled air. However, this is only any good for what are now considered to be relatively low power loads of up to a max of 15-20kW per rack. Above this a more efficient means of cooling is desired. With a move away from raised floors in data halls, alternative means of cooling are more readily applicable.

Liquid cooling systems are becoming more and more popular. However, these are difficult to deploy into an existing facility as there are challenges with server design, manufacturers warranty, heat transfer liquid and tank design to name but a few. Additionally, the number of servers that can be applied to a liquid cooling environment could be different to that in a legacy data hall. Why? Well, the immersion tanks could be likened to a rack laying on its back, rather than on one end, it takes up more data hall real estate space. This could be offset by a higher density within the cooling tanks. However, the risk appetite for co-location tenants may be challenged by such a technology.

The efficiency of such a technology can be seen in the use that is made of liquid cooling by bitcoin miners and super computers. Remember that IBM main frames were liquid cooled around 40 years ago!

2024 will continue to see wider adoption of alternative cooling technologies globally to be able to deal with the increased density of the following key area.

AI and ML

Much has been made of the growing use of AI (actually machine-based learning), the generative AI panic and the large amounts of power needed to sustain these applications. Just remember, however, that AI is NOT sentient or currently has the ability to replace human thought, also it cannot build the data center facility, still need humans for that – it might be able to streamline the process though.

We have seen during 2023 not only the fastest consumer product but also the fastest government intervention in a new technology. However, the novelty and speed of generative AI has shown up very similar problems to that experienced by social media platforms, which still exist today. For an interesting read on this please consider the article https://www.wired.com/story/generative-ai-web-2-mistakes/

The previous 2 key areas that proceed this area need to up their game to be able to deal with compute intensive deployments.

Whilst facilities will want to have such deployments within their data halls, they do need to consider if their power allocation from the grid will sustain this. Of course, most facilities have over provisioned their power requirements with each department adding on their ‘fudge factor’ and then contracting for a higher power allocation from the grid. Whilst this strategy may help individual facilities this does not help the environment around the data center which may be ‘starved’ of additional power. Perhaps the grid needs to revise their procurement clauses to take back unused power allocations?

2024 will continue to see the growth of AI/ML ready facilities, however, while companies enthuse over the ‘newest and shiniest toy in the box’ do not forget that co-location is where a lot of the AI generated workloads will run and we are not seeing any reduction the amount of cloud space being needed.

Sustainability

Scrolling though LinkedIn and other tech news sites, it is not very long before you will see companies and individuals talking about ‘sustainable data centers’ and the like.

This is a new buzz word that seems like it has to be tacked onto anything and everything to make it seem relevant, rather like the Net Zero tag.

2024 needs to see ‘sustainability’ ripped away from the embrace of the marketing departments and left in the hands of the actual ‘doers’ to be able to produce practical results without spin!

So rather than big pronouncements around the ‘sustainable data centre’ the revolution needs to come as a paradigm shift in design of new facilities that embraces new technologies and alternative methods. There has been enough talking and tweaking around the edges of design, now we need to ‘grasp the nettle’ and do something about it. The use of alternative construction techniques is important as here, by using alternative materials we can produce a similar result that which has gone before. Alternative materials will be able to respond to the demands of facilities being on-line more quickly and earlier than traditional methods. The use of modular facilities will also help with the growth of the available MW’s.

Data Center Talent

Attraction and retention are two of the most important areas and the weight of this will be seen in 2024 more than previous years.

While planning applications may talk about the number of direct jobs available at a data center, remember that for each DC job there are up to 6 more created in the supporting areas.

Salaries will continue to have a major influence on people, however, this may only fuel the merry-go-round of existing staff moving between companies.

What is vital is to inject new blood into the industry. Those transitioning between careers or demobilising from the forces are two great areas that are ripe for employment in the industry.

The other area that needs continual effort is in the area of apprenticeships and early careers. Whilst there is not a defined apprenticeship for data centers, there are opportunities within project and cost management to be able to work on projects. It is exciting to see some hyperscalers are making opportunity for early careers to train alongside experienced staff to see how to deliver projects. Of course, there will be ‘naysayers’ who will bleat that these organisations will just poach these young people, however, does it matter? Think of the greater good that is happening by the training of people to work in the amazing industry. All of us started off with no experience and are grateful for the opportunity we have been given, or fallen into, to work here. Let’s be a bit more altruistic and ensure others have a similar opportunity.