The 2030 data centre – are you future proofed?
At the Data Centre Transformation 2023 conference, RED Engineering Design hosted the Data Centres of the Future workshop sessions.
Attended by over 150 industry professionals, these interactive workshops considered significant issues likely to influence data centres development in the next seven years.
Key Technology Trends
Phil Beale said “the wide variety of data centre professions represented meant these workshops revealed a deeper level of insight than expected, particularly in regard to future trends”
Technology Highlights
- The rapid scaling-up of AI will have a significant impact upon computational capacity and big data storage resources
- 5G technology to support data intensive applications, such as transport automation, will drive Edge Computing and the need for geographically distributed data centres
- Smart network monitoring and management tools will deliver improved levels of utilisation of IT equipment across the entire enterprise architecture
- The identification of isolated, low-use or abandoned ‘zombie’ CPU equipment is essential - AI technologies will be used to automatically locate and power-down idle systems
- Processing optimisation through Quantum computing technology will reduce the IT load and lower energy consumption (in contrast with switched on/off or one/zero state in traditional computing systems
- The integration of ‘as built’ 3D CAD drawings and Digital Twinning will provide a converged platform for improved operational power optimisation, it will have a significant impact upon energy consumption on a Tier III/IV concurrently maintainable environment
Energy Trends
- Something radical needs to be done about wasted heat dissipation into the atmosphere, i.e. economic incentives to for business to consumer heat transfer schemes
- A major technological challenge for heat recovery systems is cost efficient storage during low energy periods, in summer months etc
- The data centre industry is progressing towards greater autonomy through on site power generation capacity. The concepts around export of electrical energy back into the grid are going well the beyond surplus requirements of the data centre and moving more towards active and dynamic power generation to augment the national infrastructure through on-site power generation assets
- The selection of specific renewable energy sources to connect to the data centre via a local microgrid was agreed future direction. Although the current microgrid output is dwarfed by data centre demand, technological innovation is accelerating to meet DC capacity
- To overcome ageing infrastructure in many areas, commercial self-sufficiency plan for low cost, high resilience power should is progressing in the private sector; developers to fund, build and operate high efficiency energy centres to increased provide power & cooling with the necessary levels of Service Level Agreements
Download our latest white paper - The 2030 Data Centre, Are You Future Proofed?
How can RED ICT help?
RED ICT Design are working with the industry today to plan ahead. Through engineering innovation we can ensure our client safeguard their investment through futureproofed design.
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