Innovation in the data center sector
We live in an era of rapid change, in which innovation and continuous change are high on the agenda. Every day, the data center industry is faced with digital disruptions and the energy transition. How do we face these challenges, and what does this mean for the future of our sector?
On the first of June, DDA partners and participants gathered to discuss the above mentioned themes. The interactive event took place in LAB.073, a monumental building of Enexis in ‘s Hertogenbosch that used to be a 50kV station in the past. The building symbolizes the energy transition we are currently in, where we shift from a traditional energy supply towards an approach that is durable and more efficient.
The data center of the future
Two themes were discussed during the interactive sessions. The first theme focused on improving sustainability within the data center industry even further. Currently, most of the energy that is used in data centers is green. Furthermore, data centers have invested heavily to improve the Power Usage Efficiency (PUE). From an economic point of view and also taken into account the continuity of the industry, energy neutrality is considered an attractive perspective. The question is: will we be able to reach energy neutrality on the short term?
The second theme focused on the size of data center facilities. The emergence of IoT will have a big impact on the data center industry. Latency and connectivity will be crucial variables for certain IoT applications such as the self-driving car. As a result, there is increased demand for local solutions that are as close to the source as possible. For this reason, smaller – maybe even micro – data centers are needed. At the same time we see a trend towards increasingly growing data centers. An important driver for this trend is the cost effectiveness as scale, efficiency, connectivity and security result in lower cost. Furthermore, the use of cloud applications is growing rapidly, and regional and micro data centers will not be able to meet these demands. The question therefore is: what type of data centers will prevail?
The above mentioned topics are discussed in our Innovation Day report. In addition to that the report shows the visions of Huawei, Minkels, Socomec and Stulz on innovation and sustainability in the data center sector.