Overcoming Delays for New IT Capacity

It has never been harder to deploy new IT capacity. A perfect storm has formed in the data center industry, making it exceedingly difficult for organizations to add compute, storage, networks, or HPC racks when and where needed. This situation has turned the supply-and-demand model upside down, with demand for data centers exceeding supply. The demand is driven by several trends: massive investments in AI, the continued growth of cloud computing, the replacement of outdated infrastructure, support of higher-density racks, and the relentless increase in the global volume of data. Our industry has never seen this level of demand, which is skyrocketing when supply faces several constraint challenges: the scarcity of suitable land, limited power infrastructure, supply chain bottlenecks, permitting complexity, zoning, and even construction workforce shortages. As a result, there is little available capacity, and data center delivery lead times have lengthened to years, with durations getting longer daily. This imbalance of demand and supply creates a dilemma for organizations of every size: They need to deploy racks right away, and their IT needs can’t wait for the longer delivery times of new fixed data center facilities or expansions of their existing data centers.

A Game-Changer for Rapidly Deploying IT Capacity

Quantum, a Compass Datacenters company solves this dilemma with its award-winning modular data center solution, making it possible to deploy IT capacity wherever needed rapidly. At a time when the industry timeline for new facilities is counted in years, Quantum can deploy rack-ready data center space in months, thereby meeting the needs of even the most pressing IT deployments. This novel white glove Data- Center-as-a-Service model is proving indispensable to companies facing a limited supply of fixed data center space and qualified headcount, enabling customers to accelerate and simplify the addition of IT capacity dramatically. Quantum can actively manage every deployment aspect, including engineering, manufacturing, logistics, site preparation, permitting, installation, site monitoring, security, and break-fix escalation. Preventive maintenance is included, and Quantum has partners for customers to use for break-fix remediation tailored to specific response times and other customer needs.

An OpEx Lease Model and Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

At a time when data center builds are becoming more capital-intensive, Quantum delivers IT capacity with a lease model, which converts a major capital investment into a full-service OpEx expense. Building out IT capacity is incredibly expensive. Quantum provides a financial model that eliminates the capital requirements and simplifies this to a monthly expense. In addition to eliminating the high upfront costs for building IT capacity, Quantum dramatically reduces the total cost of ownership. For many buildings, the cost to build is at most 10–30 percent of the total TCO. 70–90 percent of its true cost is for maintenance over the lifetime of the implementation. We have changed all of that with our design. Quantum requires zero maintenance during its lifetime— delivering a far lower TCO than other options due to its unique composite. Additionally, each unit can be 100% recycled at the end of life, ensuring no part of the shell will ever end up in a landfill. In total, each Quantum deployment has a lifespan nearly twice as long as comparable solutions and achieves approximately 140,000 kg of avoided carbon emissions compared to an industry equivalent over its lifetime.

Flexible Power Options

When our team designed Quantum, they wanted a level of futureproofing that would enable these solutions to serve as long as fixed data center buildings—a radical concept for a modular solution. The commitment to futureproofing led to many of the characteristics discussed above, including its rugged materials, hyperscale-quality components, and easy movability to new sites. Another key to futureproofing is the flexibility of power sources. Power sources are a topic customers talk about with us in depth because there is so much change happening in this area. In collaboration with our power partners, we have designed Quantum to have tremendous power flexibility, allowing customers to use any combination of power sources. This can include power from the electrical grid, microgrids, fuel cells, battery systems, next-gen generators, modular nuclear, and more. We enable customers to choose the power sources that make the most sense for a given implementation, which can be changed to evolve. From microgrids to sustainable backup, we ensure the customer’s investments will continue to meet their needs even as the mix of power resources evolves and sustainability requirements increase.

A Foundation for the Future of AI

One of the most exciting applications for Quantum’s solution is a version of AI flying under the radar. When people talk about AI, they usually refer to the large language models that process vast data volumes in centralized data centers. Still, tuning and inference AI is poised to enormously impact our lives. Tuning and Inference AI will likely live in smaller facilities much closer to people, delivering AI-driven information and services in almost real-time—these range from assisting radiologists in detecting pathologies in hospitals to enabling self-driving cars and inventory management. Ultra-low latency and the ability to support both high and low power density are two key success factors for Inference AI infrastructure. Both of these are key attributes of Quantum implementations. Three of Quantum’s models are optimized to support escalating densities of IT equipment designs—a rarity for modular solutions. Installing Quantum units on nearly any site without heavy construction and a concrete pad makes it ideal for minimizing latency for any application, including AI.

Use Cases Across the Private and Public Sector

There are numerous use cases for Quantum’s turnkey, white-glove IT capacity solutions for organizations across the private and public sectors, including the US Department of Defense and US federal government agencies: Modernizing enterprise-sized and mid-sized organization’s on-premise data centers to handle denser racks and new security requirements Deploying configurable modular data centers for both enterprise and military sites that can be fixed, temporary or deployable Hosting compute for cloud providers, ISPs, CDNs, enterprises, etc. near their Internet Exchanges/network nodes using existing land, power, and fiber Deploying IT capacity at multiple buildings and manufacturing sites to support additional compute needs Modernizing AV closets, telecom huts, and other legacy infrastructure The success of Quantum implementations is ensured not only by the experienced Quantum team but through its close partnerships with many of the industry’s most respected companies.