Ten years of growth – ten years of change

Over the last decade the data centre industry has experienced a shift in scale that even the most optimistic of players had not foreseen, as well as many other more predictable changes.

Ten years ago when i3 Solutions Group was founded, a data centre design of 15MW - 20MW would be bracketed in the medium-to-large category.

Today, thanks to the hyperscalers and large commercial data centre developers, projects ten times that size are not unusual.

More predictably, data centre developments are moving beyond traditional large metropolitan established markets into every corner of the world.

The higher density loads that were forecast have grown from averages of 3 - 5kW per rack ten years ago to 15 - 20kW today.

At the same time the requirement for high levels of resilience has softened. Power fault tolerance at 2N levels have moved to N+1 or N+2 designs, partly due to cost and partly to advances in IT, such as software failover across availability zones.

This growth, driven by an exponential demand for data throughout the globe and touching every commercial, social and government activity, is now challenging the data centre industry to provide long term sustainable infrastructure design, developments and operation of digital infrastructure at vast scale.

While governments tout digitalisation as one answer to economic growth, a raft of regulations to ensure sustainability measures such as carbon reporting and circularity are now being imposed upon the industry.

The game has changed.

From then to now

Building on more than two decades of mission critical data centre engineering experience, Ed Ansett founded i3 Solutions Group in 2013.

Based on a desire to do great work for its clients, the company had a clear mission to challenge the status quo and provide new approaches to design thinking for data centre power, cooling and control systems.

“Like all start-ups, i3 had to prove itself. Beginning with securing and successfully delivering relatively small mission critical projects, the company proved its credentials and this led to the number and size of projects delivered growing consistently over our first ten years. From two engineers we are now a global team with offices in the Asia Pacific and the UK, and representation through our partnerships in the US, EMEA and across the globe.

“Today we are delivering major projects at scale with the world’s largest and most recognisable data centre brands and global critical infrastructure developers. We continue to work with governments and commercial operators and the leading global infrastructure providers.” says Ed Ansett, i3 Chairman and Founder.

In its first ten years of business i3 Solutions Group has delivered multiple award-winning data centre projects for clients, developed entirely new concepts in data centre power provision, and become respected thought leaders helping shape industry approaches to practical sustainability and growing an international client base.

i3’s core ability is to build on trusted methods while remaining continually open to new data centre thinking. This has set i3 apart from traditional cross sector consulting engineering outfits. As data centre specialists, i3 is able to table engineering options for its clients to maximise available, space, power and cooling capacity for the most efficient resource use.

“i3 Solutions has been at the forefront of data centre innovation since its inception. Their design focus on reliability, energy efficiency and sustainability has set the mark for mission critical facilities,” says Peter Gross PE, Managing Partner - PMG Associates Consulting and Advisory.

The next ten years

i3 experts continually scan the horizon for what challenges and opportunities are coming next. These challenges naturally include the application of sustainable technologies to the data centre industry. This is a topic that begins with what happens outside the data centre to what happens at IT level.

The data centre sector needs to understand it must behave in a manner that reflects its growth curve over the last ten years and its growth trajectory over the next decade.

This requires the industry to recognise its growing public profile by learning to manage its reputation in a mature manner. It means changing attitudes by embracing practical approaches to design and operation that verifiably tackle sustainability issues with technical, engineered solutions.

For example, there must be an end to any form of greenwashing. The industry must accept and understand the difference between PPA (Power Purchase Agreements) and carbon offsetting versus design and operation that empirically cuts its own GHG emissions.

It must grasp the sustainability nettle in its own and broader economic and national interests by accepting that at scale, data centres will be operating as microgrids. That is, they will become power producers as well as energy intensive users. The industry must embrace demand response (DR) opportunities, designing-in the capability to feed power back to the main grid.

“As countries seek to increase the sustainability of their grids, this is the single most important power issue that we face if we are to maintain the reliable flow of electricity to the IT load. This is not just an issue for the industry, but a global issue as governments force electrical grids to decarbonise,” says Ansett.

Within the walls of the data centre (behind the meter), the industry has lowered PUE and WUE and those performing best have proved what can be achieved. But in terms of pure power provision the sector may have hit the limits with these efficiency gains.

Inside the data centre, new sustainability gains must include design and engineering working more closely with IT.

As specialists in data centre MEP engineering services, i3 continuously works on gaining a deep understanding of IT operations and how design can help support workloads through more efficient, reliable and sustainable power provision. One of the company’s first detailed technical papers (as part of its Green House Gas (GHG) abatement initiative) was titled: “An Approach to Calculating and Defining Overall Data Centre Energy Efficiency including Compute, Network, Storage and Facilities.”

The demand growth for data is accelerating. “No-one, and certainly not a data centre engineer, can stop the data tsunami. But as engineers we want to push the industry to maximise the utilisation of all secured and available power. To do that requires a forward- looking understanding of how the IT load is changing. Not all IT loads are equal, so we cannot continue with low utilisation and monolithic power topologies” says Ansett.

Throughout its first ten years of operation i3 has built its business around a team of experts with an unparalleled commitment to delivering excellence for clients. At the same time, the company has cultivated an ethos of curiosity, critical thinking and enquiry dedicated into creating ever more efficient and sustainable critical digital infrastructure.

It will continue these efforts over the next ten years and beyond.