The discussion explores the current and future challenges of powering rapidly scaling data centers, focusing on the unprecedented demand for clean, scalable electricity. Topics include the limitations of the current grid, the viability of modular and “extra modular” reactor technologies, and the promise of vertically integrated nuclear solutions. Matt Loszak offers deep insights into Aalo’s business model, the economics of on-site power generation, and the transformative potential of fast, factory-built nuclear power for the data center industry.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Matt’s Background
03:55 From software to nuclear impact
07:16 Engineering Leader in Nuclear Innovation
11:16 Nuclear Power The Future Answer
16:28 Revolutionizing SMRs Lessons from SpaceX
17:19 Vertical integration to solve delays
21:15 Smaller plants over gigawatt nuclear
24:50 Configurable real-time power solutions
28:50 Pipeline vs power grid infrastructure
31:37 Energy challenges in industry operations
35:27 Nuclear the big picture solution
39:56 Optimal small nuclear innovation
40:35 Aalo’s customer-focused design approach

The conversation explores the rapidly evolving role of data centers in a world increasingly focused on power demand, decarbonization, and environmental responsibility. Topics span the exponential growth in data center energy needs, nuclear and renewable energy’s place in the power mix, and the critical importance of sustainable materials and supply chains. Raymond and Miranda discuss the collaborative structure of the Climate Accord—including governing bodies and working groups—addressing how the industry is innovating toward measurable climate goals, equipment standards, and new ways to balance digital growth with planetary stewardship.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Sustainable Design and Global Impact
06:20 Solo hike in Austria
09:48 Capturing Energy from Lightning
10:49 Fortuitous Career Transition Story
13:52 Collaborative Leadership in Decarbonization
17:55 Strategic Alliances for Clean Energy
21:50 Powering Digital Interactions at Scale
23:55 Energy challenges and perceptions
29:10 Industry Leaders Drive Climate Action
32:07 Building a Greener Future Together
33:48 Equipment and Environmental Collaboration
38:03 Responsible Digital Infrastructure Insights

The discussion centers around the dramatic rise in power density within data centers, the historical shift from lead acid to lithium-ion batteries, and their respective challenges—especially in the face of rapidly spiking AI and GPU workloads. Sai explains Niable’s breakthrough material, enabling batteries to recharge in minutes while maintaining safety and high power density.

The pair explore the urgent industry need for new solutions to manage dynamic, unpredictable power loads and introduce Niable’s dynamic response power systems as a novel bridge between supercapacitors and batteries. The episode offers practical insights on how innovative materials science can redefine power management in the next-generation data center.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Dr Shivareddy’s background 
04:51 From lab to real world
06:38 Data centers growing power demand
10:23 Energy Storage Capacitors vs Batteries
15:22 UPS vs BBU power comparison
17:27 Battery stress at full capacity
20:13 GPU power surge trends
25:33 Voltage conversion in power systems
27:56 Dynamic Power Regulation System
30:17 Power System Design and Optimization
34:43 Optimizing GPU power efficiency
36:06 Power solutions for dynamic workloads

The discussion focuses on the challenges and trends in the global data center business, particularly regarding power and the impact of the AI boom, with a regional breakdown provided by the Data Center Hawk team.

Key Regional Insights on Power and Trends:

• APAC (Asia-Pacific), led by Daddy Escandar:
• Power situations are unevenly distributed.
• Tier one markets like Japan, Singapore, and Australia face similar issues to the US, with power delivery timelines extending to 8–10 years or as fast as 1–2 years.
• Grid quality is also unequal, leading to the use of non-traditional power sources in tier two markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and India.
• A significant project is Google's announced 5-gigawatt data center in India, which requires massive grid upgrades in the Chennai region.
• AI is viewed differently across the region, and many new deployments (45-50%) are being designed as "AI ready," giving the region the luxury of time to prepare before the customers arrive.
• Nuclear energy is not yet popular, though SMR (Small Modular Reactor) technology is being assessed in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia as a fast option for energy where grid quality is poor.

Latin America (LATAM), led by Steve Sass:

• Brazil is the largest market, accounting for 40-45% of the region. It is well-set up for power, with growth spreading from São Paulo and Rio to tier two markets.
• The region benefits from submarine cable capacity and interconnection, which draws development to coastal areas.
• Mexico faces power constraints, specifically transmission issues, in areas like Querétaro, with some large data center companies unable to sell space due to expected power delays of one or two years.
• Transmission is the biggest constraint.
• Private companies may charge high interconnection fees ($800–$1,000 KVA) for connecting to a substation in an industrial park.
• Argentina may see investments due to the discovery of the second-largest natural gas reserve in the south, potentially mirroring the growth in West Texas.
• Most countries in LATAM (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay) have 80-95% renewable energy, primarily from hydro (50-70%).
• LATAM is waiting for the AI "wave" to hit, as connectivity is needed first; Chinese cloud companies are growing capacity rapidly in the region.

North America, led by Ed Soja:

• Power constraints are regional; Texas has exploded with projects in West Texas (Abilene, Amarillo) and South Dallas, due to the adoption of natural gas as a power source.
• Projects are moving to tertiary, non-traditional markets due to power availability, such as P Washington, Wisconsin, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
• Large-scale gigawatt developments are still occurring, but there's a return to 20–50 megawatt deployments following a hub-and-spoke model.
• Natural gas is currently used in the US as a "bridging power solution" to get projects running quickly in constrained markets until utility power is available. Its adoption is shaping development locations.
• There is a shift toward nuclear power, with hyperscalers acquiring and talking about building reactors. The host predicts significant nuclear data center projects in the US by 2030.

EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), led by David Saunders:

• The main challenge is finding available land and power in suitable locations.
• Data center operators are partnering with power companies to solve generation, transmission, and distribution challenges.
• Europe has a lot of planned capacity, but the timeline for power delivery is uncertain.
• The planning and regulatory framework is complex, and a shortage of skilled labor is also a factor.
• The legacy FLAP-D markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin) are slowing down, particularly Dublin due to a political moratorium. Emerging markets like Nordic and Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece) are gaining momentum.
• The UK government has dedicated data centers as critical national infrastructure, which could speed up the regulatory process.
• The Irish government recently announced that large energy users can apply to develop gas power plants to support their businesses.
• The Middle East is an emerging market with exceptional growth. Saudi Arabia and UAE are the two major markets, with plans for multi-gigawatt campuses. The region aims to become the AI hub connecting Asia and Europe.

Outlook on the AI Boom:.
David Liot (CEO, Data Center Hawk) predicts a 3-to-5-year window for the current "straight up" AI boom, constrained by supply and alternative energy pathways.

The key factors to track globally are: who has the power, who has the money (for billion-dollar projects), and who has the chips.

• Data Center Hawk tracked 3 gigawatts of absorption in the US in 2023, 6.8 gigawatts in 2024, and 15.6 gigawatts in 2025, which the speaker notes represents roughly $2 trillion in transactional value.
• Other speakers believe the runway is much longer, as large-scale enterprise adoption of AI in sectors like finance and healthcare is still in its infancy.

The discussion explores Generac’s bold entrance into the data center market with the recent launch of high-capacity (2.25–3.25 MW) generator sets—addressing pressing supply chain and lead time challenges within mission-critical power. Brad delves into Generac’s evolution from primarily consumer backup power solutions into a fully-fledged energy technology company, including strategic acquisitions in smart controls and microgrid systems. The conversation also highlights Generac’s agility in manufacturing, its commitment to local production in Wisconsin, advances in monitoring and managed services, and the growing role of sustainable fuels like HVO.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Brad’s Generac Career Journey
04:38 Celebrating Generact at Summer Fest
07:58 Evolving into an Energy Tech Company
10:42 Generac's Rapid Strategic Entry
14:08 Streamlining Standby Power Lead Time
18:35 UK's Leading Generator Control Supplier
19:44 HVO: A Versatile Fuel Alternative
23:20 Exciting North American Expansion Strategy

The conversation explores the rising impact of AI on energy consumption, positioning data centers as the new “AI factories”—manufacturing knowledge with data and electrons as raw materials. Mark discusses Nvidia’s evolution from gaming hardware to high-performance computing and AI platforms, unlocking efficiencies and new capabilities.
Key topics include energy efficiency gains in AI workloads, the future of nuclear power and SMRs for data centers, grid optimization, and the transformative economic and social potential of AI. The episode offers deep insights into the intersection of technology, energy, and the data center industry’s future.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Marc’s Background
03:44 Corporate Transition to SGI
08:26 Career Transition: Halliburton to NVIDIA
12:04 From Gaming to AI Platform Leader
16:03 AI Empowering Industries, Not Replacing
17:47 AI Enhancing Legal Profession Tasks
22:44 AI Cost Decline and Adoption Shift
23:33 Data Center Consolidation and AI Efficiency
27:53 NVIDIA’s Energy Solutions Collaboration
30:36 Nuclear Energy: Safe and Underappreciated
34:21 How NVIDIA is Innovating Energy Solutions

The discussion pivots to the explosive growth and renaissance in the data center sector, driven by surging AI demand. Raymond and Bill cover topics such as power constraints, rack density, the rise of liquid cooling, and the shift toward AI-powered solutions for enterprise and public sector challenges. Bill also explores practical AI use cases Apollo is delivering, from improved municipal services and sentiment analysis to cutting-edge applications in agriculture and finance. The episode offers an energetic, forward-looking perspective on the future of data center infrastructure and AI.

Note: This conversation was recorded in June; references to the Ukraine–Russia conflict reflect the situation at that time and may not fully reflect the present moment.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Bill’s Background
07:10 Ukraine/Russia: Defending Against Constant Assaults
12:54 Honor Ukraine's Security Guarantees
14:02 Ukraine Conflict Outcome Scenarios
22:23 Military Concerns Over Peace Deal
25:14 Untapped Potential of Generative AI
26:38 Exploring AI's Practical Applications
31:26 AI & Data Centers' Power Demand
33:27 Powerful Shift in Data Centers
36:45 Leveling the Corporate Tech Playing Field
42:09 Reaching Next-Level Data Center Efficiency
45:12 AI Usecases 
54:55 Scalable, Meaningful Infrastructure Partnership
56:21 Democratizing AI: Expanding Possibilities

The conversation explores the global energy transition, focusing on how the shift from traditional, fossil-fuel-based generation to renewables has transformed grid dynamics. Marc explains the increasing complexity of grid management, the need for real-time data, and the importance of measuring and maintaining grid stability in a world of distributed, less predictable energy sources. The dialogue delves into Reactive’s unique approach—leveraging grid physics to both communicate with and monitor assets at the grid’s edge—and how understanding grid strength and stability can shape smarter investments, operational decisions, and data center siting in an energy-constrained world.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Entrepreneurial Journey in Electronics
03:46 Chip Innovation Sparks NFC Revolution
09:55 Energy Management for Carrefour
14:27 Grid Communication Challenges Explored
18:53 Power Station Grid Stabilization Explained
21:43 Grid Stability in Energy Transition
25:58 Optimizing Grid Signal Integration
28:44 Accurate Real-Time Grid Measurement
33:08 Time-of-Use Tariffs & Demand Trends
34:30 U.S. Energy Demand: Duck Curve

Raymond and Dave explore the evolution of data center cooling technologies from the 1980s to the present, into the transition from traditional air cooling to modern liquid cooling methods while addressing the increasing thermal demands of AI-powered data centers. They highlight the innovative Cool Face Flex solution—formerly referred to as the DH400—a hybrid unit offering unmatched flexibility in accommodating both air and liquid cooling without altering data center designs.

Throughout the episode, insights into data center energy efficiency, the technological journey from Liebert to Vertiv, and the significance of adaptable cooling solutions are offered, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of current data center cooling trends.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro
03:38 Pivot from Engineering to Sales
06:54 Liebert's Early Talent Development Program
11:06 Tech Advances in Room Temperature Efficiency
14:42 Optimizing HVAC Efficiency and Control
17:19 Emerson's Network Power Divestment
23:28 Evolution of Cooling in Computing
26:54 Pumped Refrigerant Breakthrough
29:33 Outdoor DSE Pump Solution
31:01 Flexible Chilled Water Unit Development

Martin, the founder and CEO of LATAM Entry LLC, provides insights into the Latin American data center ecosystem, focusing on subsea cables, land developers, and fiber providers. The discussion highlights the region's fast-growing market, the substantial investments in infrastructure, and the challenges like energy tariffs and government regulation.

David Liggit, founder and CEO of datacenterHawk, offers a comprehensive view of the North American data center market. The conversation explores the unprecedented growth driven by AI, emerging secondary and tertiary markets, and the importance of holistic strategies for power and community relationships.

Barro Luitjes, strategy head at KevlinX, discusses the European data center landscape, emphasizing the shift to underserved regions due to regulatory constraints in traditional markets. He also talks about the importance of educating stakeholders and partnering with power providers for sustainable growth.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Driving Data Center Growth LATAM
04:42 Bridging US and Latin America
07:42 Streamlining Deal-Making Insights
09:33 Navy Influence: From Law to Finance
14:59 Colombia's AI Implementation Bill Insights
16:56 AI-Driven Infrastructure Expansion
21:21 Regulation-Driven Market Shifts
24:22 European Employment Strategy Explained
28:16 Power Partnerships in Industry
29:36 Energy Strategy Development in Queretaro
34:34 Data Center Benefits and Opportunities
37:19 Optimizing Europe's Data Center Strategy

The conversation delves into the strategic considerations for data center siting and land use, contrasting U.S. practices with European models. Dr. Clower provides insights on the essential role of data centers in the data economy and their impact on regional development.

The dialogue touches upon critical issues like power consumption and sustainability, highlighting power planning, renewable energy sources, and the potential to revitalize nuclear infrastructure. The significance of data centers in modern economic development strategies is discussed, especially their influence on local tax bases and low infrastructure strain.

Overall, the discussion offers valuable perspectives on how municipalities can integrate data centers into their economies, emphasizing long-term planning and the evolving landscape of utility and energy demands.

Timestamped Overview:
00:00 Intro
00:52 Navigated unstable job market, transitioned to logistics.
04:49 Recruited to lead Center for Regional Analysis.
08:28 Varied localities' attitudes impact economic development approaches.
12:20 Buddy Reiser navigates data center challenges locally.
15:25 All data centers need careful land allocation.
17:59 Renewables insufficient; old infrastructure revived due to demand.
19:43 Data centers’ demand reshaping power industry dynamics.
22:51 Exploring nuclear solutions to reduce waste.
26:18 Data center proximity doesn't affect property value.
30:28 Adapt to data economy or face constraints.
35:27 Minor adjustments can help economies grow again.
37:41 Northern Virginia's electrician apprenticeships thrive, creating jobs.

The conversation delves into Kirk’s illustrious military background, highlighting his tenure on the USS Memphis submarine, rigorous deployments, and transition to civilian life. Kirk recounts the challenging yet rewarding experiences at sea and the unique leadership and technical skills honed through military service.

Topics include the military's role in fostering discipline and the significant technological advancements veterans bring to civilian industries. Kirk shares insights on his decision to leave a traditional career to establish Overwatch, emphasizing the value of veteran-owned businesses.

The discussion explores the evolving tech landscape, veterans' adaptability, and the importance of continuous learning. Raymond and Kirk also reflect on honoring Vietnam veterans, the significance of supportive communities in veteran transitions, and the inspiration behind founding the Data Center Anti Conference (DCAC).

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro
01:09 Kirk’s background
04:13 Military service inspires veteran entrepreneurship and community.
09:36 Gen Z surpassing Baby Boomers in workforce.
10:44 Military offers advanced tech training without war risks.
16:32 Navy offered broader options than SEER training.
18:33 Submarine community: intellectual, rigorous, challenging, competitive.
20:54 Real deployments with impactful military missions.
25:35 Vietnam vets deserve respect and gratitude.
29:33 Lead with empathy and adaptability during transitions.
30:37 Community collaboration empowers veterans for meaningful careers.
34:25 Empowering veterans through community, networking, and conferences.
37:59 Helping veterans is my purpose-driven mission.
40:36 Kirk's invite prompts fear of workout readiness.

The conversation explores the transformative impact of the pandemic on the data industry, driving remote work and digital transformation. Ed discusses the increased demand for data centers, fueled by technologies like AI, and the resulting power constraints in emerging markets. The dialogue transitions into the complexities of power location planning, the potential of nuclear energy for data centers, and the hurdles posed by regulatory and community acceptance.

Ed and Raymond highlight the roles of utilities and tech companies in addressing power demands, emphasizing transparent development and long lead times. They also touch on tracking competitor strategies and the importance of market intelligence.

The dialogue meticulously covers a range of timely topics concerning the data center industry. Mike and Raymond delve into the increasing demands on power generation driven by growing data center capacities and touch upon the economic shifts brought on by large tech deals, specifically in the realms of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The significance of viewing data centers as critical infrastructure similar to roads and water treatment facilities is comprehensively analyzed, reflecting on their indispensable role in modern societies. The discussion further explores the impact of AI on technological advancements, the potential adaptability of nuclear energy in data centers, and the broader implications of energy pricing on the industry's economic viability.

The dialogue dives into the intersection of military experience and data center proficiency. Tapping into their naval and military backgrounds, Watson and Jaco discuss the transferable skills that veterans bring to the industry, focusing on meticulous attention to detail and the importance of procedure adherence in handling critical equipment.
The episode also explores the personal army stories, illuminating the lighter side of their service, and the conversation turns toward the serious topic of mental wellness within the industry.

Thoughts on Memorial Day close the conversation, honoring war fighters' sacrifices and advocating for support and de-stigmatization of mental illness post-combat. Overall, this exchange offers a unique perspective on the untapped talent of veterans in the data center sphere and the essential correlation between military service and industry excellence.

George shares his journey from being a humble advertising salesperson to the inception of DatacenterDynamics magazine in 1998. Their conversation unfolds to cover the evolution of enterprise data centers, the burst of the .com bubble, and the concept of zero downtime. The historical context of data centers and the early days of technology are discussed, shedding light on the industry's development and perception over time.

With some fantastic analogies, the episode delves into topics such as systems thinking, integrating polymaths to address industry challenges, and the urgency for quicker action due to vast opportunities.
George presents his innovative endeavor, Yotta, and stresses the unification of language and communication within the digital infrastructure industry.

George’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-rockett-b18a3b4/?originalSubdomain=uk

The conversation delves into the complex world of data center management and electrical systems. ETAP, a hardware-agnostic software company acquired by Schneider, specializes in designing and simulating electrical systems for various industries, with a focus on energy optimization, compliance, and safety.

The dialogue touches upon the significance of digital twins in modeling and simulating electrical systems, providing real-time insights and ensuring operational efficiency. The hardware-agnostic nature of Etap's solutions is emphasized, allowing connectivity with diverse power systems.

 The conversation also highlights the importance of a centralized platform for stakeholders in the data center value chain, ensuring a shared and accurate version of the truth. The episode concludes with a reflection on the evolving landscape of technology and the transformative impact of digital twins on electrical system management.

Overall, the discussion offers valuable insights into the critical role of innovative software solutions in enhancing the safety, sustainability, and efficiency of data center operations.

Phanney’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phanneykimbrevard/ 

As the first week of December unfolds, we take a break from the tech talk to share insights on the college football landscape. From Michigan's anticipated presence to the controversies surrounding Florida State's exclusion, Raymond, Mike, and Buddy provide a unique blend of humor and expertise.

Join the conversation as they break down the committee's decisions, discuss the surprises and snubs, and prophesize the outcomes of the season. Whether you're a die-hard football fan or just looking for a fun departure from the data center discussions, this episode promises some good old fashion sports banter.

With degrees in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and an MBA from Northwestern University, Govi's career has been dedicated to unraveling the complex challenges posed by data center energy use. He has been at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to reduce environmental impacts while enhancing operational efficiency.

Govi sheds light on the evolving landscape of data center technology. From advancements in cooling and power management to the latest trends in renewable energy integration, he discusses the dynamic strategies being employed to make data centers more sustainable.

They then talk about the critical importance of optimizing data center energy consumption, particularly in the digital age. His extensive knowledge and forward-thinking ideas make this episode essential for those intrigued by the energy dynamics of data centers and their profound implications for our environment and technology-driven world.

Govi’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goviramasamy/ 

After 15 years in the technology space, Bill has the chance to see quite the endless advancements. Today, he works with leaders in digital infrastructure to help build a more sustainable and inclusive future and support an ever-connected digital society. He is also a contributing editor to leading industry publications, including Data Center Frontier, Data Center Knowledge, ITPro Today, and InformationWeek.

Today they discuss the evolution of generative AI, but before they get there, Bill tells the fascinating story of his journey to America, fleeing a dangerous radioactive Kiev after the Chernobyl fallout in the late 1980s. They then discuss the incredible advancements we’re seeing in generative AI, and how that can help in a myriad of ways across data centers, technology, health, and everything in between.
To connect with Bill, visit his website (https://billkleyman.com/) and connect with him on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/billkleyman/).

Discussion points include conference realignment, predictions for the upcoming college football season, who will win each major conference, and Heisman picks. Listen in as they forecast the 2023-24 college football season.

David Liggitt is the Founder of and CEO at datacenterHawk, helping data center professionals make the best decisions possible. With over 15 years in commercial real estate and extensive experience navigating the data center industry, David understands the communication between data center providers, users, vendors, investors, and consultants.

Today they discuss expansion into major markets across the US, as well as into international areas around the globe, while accommodating the need for power to run these processes. They touch on the introduction of AI into the marketplace and the future of data centers across the world.

Connect with David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidliggitt/

Hailing from Alberta, Canada, Erin has had a long career as a developer and is now the general manager of the ever-popular Addicting Games website. The site is a directory of sorts full of quick, engaging games to pass the time, while Erin is also a Full-Stack Developer at TeachMe - a gamifying system to produce educational content for students.

Raymond and Erin discuss the road the industry has taken and pay tribute to some of the great games that helped shape the industry where it is today, like Tetris. They look at the future of these gaming capabilities and where education sits in that pile.

To learn more about Erin, head to her LinkedIn page here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-torbiak-56415869/ 

With a PhD in Psychology from Stanford University, Dr Glass has been working in the cognitive neuroscience of learning field, with a focus on the science of instruction. Recently, his focus has been on the effects technology has on the learning process and ability of college students.

In a fascinating discussion, Raymond and Dr Glass explore the impacts technology has on students, comparing his findings from the classroom 15 years ago to now, and how detrimental multitasking has become in college lectures.

You can connect with Dr Arnold Glass on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnold-glass-6134825/

Or connect via his Professor page on the Rutger’s University website: https://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-profiles-a-contacts/98-arnold-glass

On this episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center, host Raymond Hawkins welcomes Steven Hill, an independent datacenter analyst and writer, for an insightful discussion on this pressing issue. They delved into Hill's unique journey, from a professional photographer photographing ore carriers, cranes, and Packers games, to a leading voice in the datacenter industry. They also explored hydrogen as a potential solution to these challenges, despite its high reactivity and flammability and its low energy volume.

Their discussion further unfolded into…

• Hill's transition from professional photography to datacenter analysis
• The burgeoning focus on data center sustainability
• The role of hydrogen as a potential fuel source in the datacenter industry
• The challenges posed by increasing demand for computing power and growing data center density
• Different types of hydrogen and their potential uses in the industry
• The increasing adoption of multicore processors and virtualization in data centers
• The criticism faced by the data center industry for high power consumption and the increasing demand for sustainable electricity

Steven Hill is an independent datacenter analyst and writer. He has charted an unconventional career path, transitioning from professional photography to the datacenter industry, where he now applies his analytical skills to examine and write about the pressing issues facing the industry.

What are the advantages of the 7x24 Conference, and what does planning it entail? 

For an episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center podcast, host Raymond Hawkins interviewed Bob Cassiliano, Chairman and CEO of the 7×24 Exchange International — a nonprofit education forum aimed at helping companies in various sectors overcome challenges. The two talked about the creation of 7x24, its growth over the years, and changes and improvements made to its annual conferences.  

Hawkins and Cassiliano also went on to discuss … 

1. The earlier years of 7x24 and his background with the company 
2. The mission and goals the conferences aim to achieve 
3. What goes into strategizing and planning these conferences for success 

“We look towards four aspects that we think deliver the differentiation for us. The number one is the content; we always try to put together a program that is of high quality with top notch presenters. The venue where we take them, we go to four- and five-star resorts, and we do that because over the years through our evaluations it became very obvious where the attendees like to be - we also look at how the attendees are treated right …,” said Cassiliano. 

He added the welcoming aspect of the event is a further display of the type of hospitality they aim to offer and provide at the 7x24 conference. “The thing we are most proud of, and we really believe really differentiates us from everybody, is how guest-friendly we are. So, if you attend the conference and you bring a guest, that guest is allowed to attend our welcome reception on Sunday night, the conference keynote on Monday morning, any nighttime events that we have, as well as the Wednesday morning breakfast,” said Cassiliano. 

Bob Cassiliano is the Chairman and CEO of the 7×24 Exchange International. He’s been with 7x24 since 1990, which was formerly called the Uninterruptible Uptime Users Group when he joined. He became CEO in 2011 and has held the role since. Cassiliano is a graduate of New York City College of Technology where he earned a degree in electrical technology.  

On today’s episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center by Compass Datacenters, podcast host Raymond Hawkins, speaks with Francisco Vieira Mendes, Co-Founder and Head of Growth at Yerbo, about the origins of his company and what services they offer to tackle employee burnout in the tech world. 

Mendes explained the value Yerbo’s assessments can bring to the table to change an organization when leaders share their own results with the team. “It’s really important that those of you that are listening that are leaders of an organization or leaders within a team—even if it’s just a two-person team—it’s important that you show by example…If you show that we’re open to discuss those items, if you bring your results…that’s really important.” 

Mended went on to add “Because if you feel psychologically safe to be able to share that, that’s going to be very loud for your team, because your team is going to realize, ‘All right, I can share this because if you share this with me, maybe I can share this with him or her.’” 

Francisco Vieira Mendes is a marketing professional who has a passion for helping Latin American startups grow. He is Co-Founder and Head of Growth at Yerbo and has served in past roles such as a Class Lead for KURIOS, VP of Marketing at treble.ai, and Director of Product-Led Growth at CleverTap. Mendes earned a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from the Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto and a Master’s degree in Attendance and Computer Science from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto. 

On the latest episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast, CRO and host Raymond Hawkins chats with the Vice President of Global Data Center Sales with Bloom Energy, Jeff Barber, about the energy crisis, ESG, and Bloom Energy.  

The two discuss: 

1. Why reducing your carbon footprint now adds time-value 

1. How Bloom Energy offers an alternative that lasts into the future 

1. What Bloom Energy is, how it generates power, and what their power-purchase agreement looks like 

“So, Bloom energy is solid-oxide fuel cells that are on-site, at your facility, in a micro-grid form. So this is power-generation at your facility, without the centralized grid, with the centralized grid…Bloom is intended to create energy for the facility, to be the primary energy to that facility, 24/7 365,” explained Barber, noting that these are not batteries. 

A California native, Barber has collected over 25 years of experience in the energy, sales, and data center industries. Though he first started working on network troubleshooting through the G-Tech Corporation as a Network Support and DEC VAX System Administrator, Barber has since held leadership positions at a number of globally recognized brands, including Hewlett-Packard, the EMC Corporation, and Oracle.  Prior to joining Bloom, Barber was a Partner & EVP Sales and Business Development leader for Prime Data Centers. He is a graduate of California State University at Sacramento, with a BS in Business Administration.  

On this episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast, CRO and host Raymond Hawkins, chats with Chief People Officer of Enabled Intelligence, Lauren Bacon Smith, about neurodiversity, data labeling, and AI.

The two discuss:

• How tapping into the talent pool of neurodivergent people led Enabled Intelligence to success
• How Enabled Intelligence is growing their core business
• How AI modeling helps label the dataset faster

“Yeah, so we actually have a data science team in-house now where we are actually creating some of our own models, so we are kind of having that full life-cycle where we have also done data curation, so clients coming to us, a lot of times have their data already, but we have the ability…to actually go out, get the data, prepare it, annotate it, and then we also are able to create and test our own models,” explained Bacon Smith.

Lauren Bacon Smith holds over a decade of experience in program management, human resources, and recruitment. Starting her career in the hospitality and service industry, Bacon Smith spent eight years with Hilton Worldwide as the Senior Manager for Military Programs before joining Enabled Intelligence as the Chief People Officer to help continue fostering a culture of inclusion.

The Executive Director of Loudoun County, Virginia Economic Development, Buddy Rizer, was the guest on this edition of the "Not Your Father's Center Data Podcast," hosted by Raymond Hawkins, CEO of Compass Datacenters.

According to Buddy, “Data centers allowed us to cut our tax rate to 89 cents last year, which means less pressure on homeowners to pay their loans. Additionally, we were able to construct a variety of schools, invest up to a billion dollars in road infrastructure, and extend the Washington D.C. Metro to Loudoun which in turn provides great jobs and services.”

Buddy Rizer is the Executive Director for the Department of Economic Development in Loudoun County, Virginia, which was named the 2021 Economic Development Organization of the Year by the International Economic Development Council. He leads the agency responsible for encouraging growth and developing relationships with Loudoun’s business community in both the commercial and agricultural-based business sectors.  During his tenure, Rizer and his team have attracted more than $40 billion in new commercial investment and more than 50 thousand new jobs.

While data growth is expanding at an exponential rate, processing speeds are lagging behind. Multiple cores on a single chip were a first-step industry solution, data centers were the next. Many data companies utilize clusters of hundreds and thousands of nodes to solve their complex processing needs. Friedmann’s Speedata solution offers a different approach.

“Speedata is looking at a workload that is arguably the biggest workload in the data center today, databases and analytics,” Friedmann said, “Essentially, you have a database, and multiple industries hold their information in databases, and then they want to extract information from them. And you look at the public clouds; they are giving multiple managed services to handle that. The biggest and most important managed services in the world you find are all databases and analytics.”

With the knowledge that big data is a large part of the processing need, Friedmann and Speedata designed a chip to target this specific workload, “Today, 99% of big data is processed by the CPU,” Friedmann said. That’s a large slice of the pie for Speedata to tap into and lessen the burden, “You look at what’s happening in the analytics and databases; the first revolution did not happen yet.”

Data isn’t just coming from the outside. Computers are generating synthetic data, creating even more need for processing solutions. Friedmann equates what Speedata is doing as acting as plumbers. They’re building the tools and making the pipes wider so companies can better extract their data.

Schneider Electric does some exciting work with Compass Datacenters utilizing microgrids, something Baumann knows inside and out. As recent as five years ago, Baumann said many people in the data center world had no idea what microgrids were. A lot’s changed since then. “The definition of a microgrid has evolved, but as we understand it now, it’s something where we have a combination of distributed energy resources, like local energy generation assets we can use in case a grid goes down,” Baumann said.

Baumann said microgrids solve three critical issues in the data center world. “One is greater resiliency, which we all want in a data center. Number two, which is a huge factor as well and becoming more and more prevalent and important, is sustainability,” Baumann said. “And the third one is overall, of course, cost and cost benefits. Ideally, we want to have everything. We want to be more sustainable; we have greater resiliency, and it ought to be cheaper.”

Today, the education around microgrids is growing, and Baumann said potential data center customers want specifics around how microgrids can help them and the best approach they should take. “I believe site selection for data centers will expand the criteria to meet sustainability aspects,” he said. “Being able to do onsite power generation when the electricity is expensive, we may be able to produce it cheaper ourselves and more sustainable, so the carbon intensity of our own electricity is less than the carbon intensity of the electricity we buy from the utility company.”

On the newest episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center podcast, host Raymond Hawkins engages with returning guest Andrew Jay, Executive Director of Data Centre Solutions, Advisory, & Transaction Services EMEA CBRE. The two review…

• What is affecting the data center market, including the investment market, geopolitics, and the energy crisis
• How data centers are coping with and preparing for challenges now and into the future
• The future of the market, particularly the outlook for data centers into 2023

“...What we’re trying to do is very much bring the end users to the table with the public authorities and say, ‘Look, how do we sort this out together?’...,” said Jay.

Jay is the Head of Data Centre Solutions with EMEA Advisory at CBRE and has been with CBRE for over 23 years. CBRE is a London-based worldwide commercial real estate services and investment company.

As the head of research at Uptime, Lawrence said there’s a lot of client interest in the efficiency and efficiency of data storage facilities. “There’s obviously a lot of energy being consumed in the IT side, so I feel now there’s starting to be an awareness of how we actually start to tackle that.”

With an awareness that things need to change, executive management in the IT industry is signaling to its investors a move towards carbon-neutral policies. The problem? Saying it ‘net zero’ and getting there are two different things. So, when the decree to go carbon neutral comes down from the top to the data centers, the data centers turn to Lawrence and his team at Uptime for help.

If the goal is to get to carbon neutral without significant reliance on offsets, how should data centers be thought of as stewards of the energy they use? Lawrence felt there was no easy answer, but the data storage industry should work harder to promote its value to the overall IT sector. There is a misconception that data storage centers account for a much more significant percentage of overall global energy usage than they do. But there are various regions and countries where the average is much higher, and there is work to be done to reduce those numbers.

The current state of affairs could provide a new test for digital currency. Thiel pointed out in past wars; displaced citizens did not have many options for moving their money. “Crypto provides a unique thing in this world where sanctions have become essentially a weapon and weaponized,” Thiel said. In the matter of the war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies have used sanctions to shut off Russian access to banks. The only other bearer asset available for many people and businesses in this scenario is Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

One might ask if Crypto is a solution to transferring assets, could Russia use crypto to avoid sanctions? Thiel said that the daily trading of cryptocurrency and the total market cap prevents this idea from being scalable. “As a tool for sanction evasion, Bitcoin is not a good option,” Thiel stated.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, one trend is the decoupling of the correlation between bitcoin and equities. “All of a sudden, now there was a real use case for bitcoin that was very actual and urgent, and so you started seeing bitcoin move in the opposite direction of equities. Even bitcoin-related stocks which track the price of bitcoin started moving separately. So, there were days when the Dow and the Nasdaq would go down, yet bitcoin would go up, and you saw the Nasdaq-traded, bitcoin-related stocks, Like Marathon, for example, move in lockstep with bitcoin.”

After the summer 21 news from Texas and Oklahoma, it’s become clear that two conferences are working to separate. Elias Ellefsen said, “I love the move for USC and UCLA. I’m a big fan of the big conferences.” West coast football in the Big Ten will certainly make waves. “It’s an interesting move. Typically I think of west coast football as high-paced. I think it will bring an interesting dynamic to the league,” said Steve Skyes. Others argued that the success of USC and UCL would make the Big Ten ‘The conference of champions.”

What’s to come for the future of NCAA conferences is difficult to know. Will conferences survive, implode, or expand? Raymond Hawkins, the podcast host, said, “We’re not going to continue with five powerhouses, five conferences forever.” Kenny Nguyen pointed out the weakness of the Pac-12 in the wake of the news. “Pac 12 right now, it feels like it's bleeding a little bit. If Washington and Oregon dip, what do you have left?” questioned Nguyen. The debate continues to consider how media drives these changes and the potential of only having two to three leagues.

This group's conference champion predictions favor Baylor, Ohio State, Alabama, and Utah. There’s a rich insight into specific players, coaches, and each conference. Listen to Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast on Spotify or Apple.

Nelson queued up some significant trends in the data storage space since his last visit that he was itching to discuss.

“If you think about our industry, today we have 7 million data center locations,” Nelson said. “These are places that have some type of compute in them. And there’s about 104 gigawatts of capacity built. That’s capacity that could be used. From a consumption standpoint, there’s 594 terawatt-hours of consumption. If you now equate that, that’s 2.4% of the total energy draw globally. Through iMasons, we created this baseline on purpose. And what it includes is three categories. So, digital infrastructure, in general, is providers, networks, and crypto.” Breaking down these categories helps define where the energy usage is going and how Nelson and his iMasons can find new ways to maximize the consumption of that capacity.

Even within the 594 terawatt-hours of consumption, Nelson said not all of that energy is consumed at once. Only roughly 67 gigawatts of the 104 gigawatts of power get consumed. That leaves at least 37 gigawatts unused around the globe. “And why is that,” Nelson asked. “That’s because of buffers and buffers, and everything else that happens from enterprise applications to cloud to data centers and everybody saving to ensure that they don’t have an issue.”

Ward and Raymond Hawkins, Chief Revenue Officer of Compass Data Centers, discussed this increasing accessibility in the context of data on Part Two of “Data Centers in Space” on Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast.   

Orbits Edge uses high-power compute in space before sending data to Earth. Mass amounts of data are captured, but there is a bottleneck in the transportation. Ward said, “Image capture is haystack generation, compute is needle finding,” said Ward. If you can only transport a fraction of the data haystack, it needs to be the high-quality “needles.”  

Data is shipped to countries through bands that have varying reliabilities and throughputs. A low-orbit satellite may conduct with a ground station for a certain distance, then have a fuzzy connection for another distance, and finally have no connectivity for several kilometers until it reaches the next ground station. High, dry locations are best for ground station connectivity. “What it comes down to is intermittent connectivity of variable throughputs of various windows of connectivity,” said Ward. 

Data is then transported from the ground station to a data center. Some ground stations have antennas to reduce the fiber run distance.  

Orbits Edge satellites range from the size of a dorm mini-fridge to the size of a regular fridge and weigh about 200 kilos. Despite the small size, Ward predicted that satellite data will play an increasingly heavy role in space and research stations, crystallography, space metallurgy, and ceramics.   

Ward and Raymond Hawkins, Chief Revenue Officer of Compass Data Centers, discussed this increasing accessibility in the context of data on Part Two of “Data Centers in Space” on Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast.   

Orbits Edge uses high-power compute in space before sending data to Earth. Mass amounts of data are captured, but there is a bottleneck in the transportation. Ward said, “Image capture is haystack generation, compute is needle finding,” said Ward. If you can only transport a fraction of the data haystack, it needs to be the high-quality “needles.”  

Data is shipped to countries through bands that have varying reliabilities and throughputs. A low-orbit satellite may conduct with a ground station for a certain distance, then have a fuzzy connection for another distance, and finally have no connectivity for several kilometers until it reaches the next ground station. High, dry locations are best for ground station connectivity. “What it comes down to is intermittent connectivity of variable throughputs of various windows of connectivity,” said Ward. 

Data is then transported from the ground station to a data center. Some ground stations have antennas to reduce the fiber run distance.  

Orbits Edge satellites range from the size of a dorm mini-fridge to the size of a regular fridge and weigh about 200 kilos. Despite the small size, Ward predicted that satellite data will play an increasingly heavy role in space and research stations, crystallography, space metallurgy, and ceramics.   

In this episode of Not Your Father's Data Center, host Raymond Hawkins and Doug Mohney, Editor-in-Chief of Space IT Bridge, look at the explosive growth of using satellites for data monitoring and collection. The intersection of space and IT technology offers an inexpensive and exponential increase in satellite data gathering capabilities. Ray and Doug explore the growth and use of satellites and assist everything from remote broadband communications to countries' infrastructure security.

Businesses are collecting more data than ever before. And instead of mainframes, they're using the cloud and, in a growing number of cases, constellations of satellites for communication and tracking of transportation. As a result, there has been a shift from mainframes towards the rapidly expanding availability of satellite technology.

The development of reusable rockets has assisted this shift to satellites. As a result, satellites traveling 400 miles above the earth provide capabilities and technology to deliver broadband to the entire world.

"Satellite is going to help connectivity. With current satellite technology, there can be near fiber broadband technology anywhere in the world," Mohney explained. "This is promising because it allows [cloud services, technology, and communication] to developing countries."

As a former counselor in human psychology, Wakeman revamped traditional leadership views. She explained, “I saw the world from a viewpoint of shared accountability at the time that most people were seeing the world as the leader was really responsible for the wellbeing of their employees.”

According to Wakeman, an individual can experience the same organization differently depending on their accountability. When “high accountables” are in pain, they question their role and how to address deficits. After addressing their role, what remains falls on the organization. “Low-accountables,” on the other hand, hold more of a victim mindset and first point to the organization as the source of their pain.

Wakeman began implementing these ideas through reality-based leadership training to healthcare businesses that were losing money. Soon, other organizations began to request training.

Wakeman has since built upon her training philosophy with many other essential concepts.

For example, she emphasized that “A lot of people believe their circumstances are the reason they can’t succeed. Your circumstances are the realty in which you must succeed.” Thinking inside of the box given the restraints to achieve a goal is a must. Leaders are key to this; they help move the ‘why we can’t’ to ‘how we could.’”

Perhaps Wakeman’s most important point is this: “True resilience is not about being the smartest or how much perseverance you have, it lies in the collective genius—have the best network of positive relationships, ask for help, and be vulnerable.”

These concepts only touch the tip of the iceburg. For more details, you can reference Wakeman’s books, visit realtybasedleadership.com, sign up for her newsletter, or follow @cywakeham.

“The blockchain is essentially a chain of linked blocks that each block consists of a certain number of transactions,” Thiel said. “If you think about a ledger, like your check register, if you have a checkbook and you write a bunch of checks, you write them down in your check register at the month you get a statement from your bank. So, those types of transactions are formed into blocks. The underlying software for the blockchain allows miners to do this process of assembling these transactions into blocks. Then you run a mathematical cryptographical proof on this data, and that generates a hash. And that hash has to have a certain value to it. And when it gets that hash, it then has to be equal to or less than a specific target number that the blockchain is looking for.”

Miners who guess that number correctly will win the block, publish the block, other nodes validate the block, and then the miner will receive a block award.

In the high-stakes game of blockchain mining, with limited numbers of bitcoin issued per day, Thiel said there is a competition to it. “If you have one miner, and you plug it in, you’re not going to get a fraction of a bitcoin every day,” Thiel said. “And so what miners do is, miners, pool their miners together. And aggregating and cooperating, a group of miners in a pool, you have a more hash-rate you’re contributing to the overall network, and a higher likelihood you’re going to win blocks, and the block rewards can be evenly distributed amongst members of the pool.”

While most teenagers were busy worrying about the school dance or making a sports team, Serper was preoccupied with selling security and internet services out of his childhood bedroom. In the early 2000s, cable internet had been rolling out in Israel, and he lucked out as part of the beta test. The company installed an uncapped cable connection in his house, so he had high-speed internet.

Eventually, the cable company slowed down his connection; however, he hacked the system and returned it to its faster speed. This is also around the time he started to do things on a computer besides gaming. He had three computers in his bedroom and built three servers with multiple operating systems. He then began selling web hosting packages that ran on the servers. The name of his first business? Evil Cheese.

“I had this service running for two or three years,” Serper said. “At one point, my parents started getting weird calls from the cable company telling them ‘there’s very high upload usage and asking if there’s anything that the cable company should know about.’”

His parents didn’t have any idea what was going on, and Serper played dumb. Eventually, the cable company slowed his speed, and he had to close shop, but his passion for computers launched his career.

Starting at this ripe age and around the dot com boom, Serper became a hacker and reverse engineer. He joined the Israeli Intelligence Community at 18, where he worked on vulnerability research and exploit development to designing architectures of uniquely complicated, highly reliable, one-of-a-kind communication systems.

Judge recently authored a feature story in the publication about AI and its problems.

Judge explained the concept of ethical AI, “When you have a system that can calculate and think, you have to understand the algorithms behind it and why it’s coming to such conclusions. It’s as much about the people using it than the AI itself.”

AI isn’t going to produce “wrong” conclusions, but it may not answer the questions intended. “The ethical part is about how it’s being used, not the technology,” Judge said. He pointed to the example of lung x-rays to determine which patients had COVID. “A professor looked into this, and the AI couldn’t diagnose because the training data wasn’t accurate and there were other issues.”

The promise of AI was to churn through mountains of data and drive answers, but AI does what it’s programmed to do. It’s not sentient, so the proximity for human error is abundant. “Increasing the size of the haystack doesn’t mean you’ll find the needle,” Judge commented.

The other area of ethics is deployment for good or possibly evil. Judge noted the example of AI analyzing online interactions and activities, then using its learning to target advertising that was much more on the unethical side.

AI is important to the future, but the humans programming and using it are still on ethically shaky ground.

Pope, the CEO of Submer, thinks data servers belong submerged in liquid. He was thrilled to speak to host Raymond Hawkins about his immersion cooling technology, which provides a new green approach to data centers, on this episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center.

Born and raised in England and now residing in Barcelona, Pope began his career at 16 when he started his first data center. Beginning with a single server in his bedroom, Pope grew his business to more than 20,000 servers. With his expertise in data centers set, Pope now loves the challenge of pushing technology and the industry further.

Today’s increasing demands on data centers pose a cooling challenge – one Pope knew he wanted to solve. And that set him off to help develop immersion cooling technology, the solution Submer focuses on today.

“Instead of cooling the electronics and the server components with air, we leverage a dielectric fluid, a nonconductive fluid, which captures and transports the heat in a much more efficient way than air,” Pope said.

The initial challenge for Pope was how to use this technology to cool the racks without disrupting the rest of the data haul and data center design. “And, now, further into this journey, we’re looking at it from the whole data center point of view,” Pope said.

Pope’s immersion cooling system works for solid-state drives, NVMe, flash drives and helium-sealed drives.

Immersion cooling reduces IT power load in the center by removing all the fans from the servers. And, from a density perspective, the density is ten-fold. “We are deploying immersion tanks that are in the range of 100kw that operate with extremely warm water, which means the overall facility PUE (power usage effectiveness) is reduced to around 1.04 to 1.05,” Pope said. And that PUE number is before the energy savings from the fan removal are calculated.

Nelson talked about his work at Uber and Sun Systems. This led down the path of Nelson's work at Virtual Power Systems, where they "believe that digital infrastructure is the foundation for an equitable and inclusive world, where every person on the planet participates in the digital economy."

In acting upon this vision, VPS unlocks stranded power in data centers.

What's staggering to Nelson – and why he thinks this is such important work – is that, through research, VPS found 35,000 megawatts of capacity globally in the data center industry. They checked this data through multiple vectors. Of the capacity, 10,000 megawatts are stranded. This leads to a host of issues, one of which is increasing the carbon footprint unnecessarily.

"How much embedded carbon do we add every time we perpetuate that problem and build another data center that's 50% utilized?," Nelson asked.

The goal through technology at Virtual Power Systems is to utilize this space. Data centers build such an extensive infrastructure with low utilization to make headroom and safety create into the center. They want to make sure they have the buffer room when things don't go right in the system.

"It's the cumulative effect of everyone's buffer," Hawkins said, referring to the sheer amount of space unused.

However, the current infrastructure needs a boost to help us get there.

At OrbitsEdge, CTO and Co-founder Rick Ward and the rest of the team think they’ve identified the missing link. Just as edge network solutions are empowering robust connectivity and data capture on earth, the company believes it could do the same in space.

Lipton is an Assistant Professor of Operations Research and Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon, where he runs the Approximately Correct Machine Intelligence Lab.

Those three key focuses drive Novak’s work at Compass Datacenters, and she opened up to host Raymond Hawkins about some of the exciting innovations happening at Compass.

Novak’s concentration is on improving the data center construction process. She noted that process efficiencies on the job site hadn’t improved much over the years, even as the technology and building processes have.

“A lot of people will be like, ‘Wait a minute, we do offsite componentry, we do prefab, we do other things that help us,’” Novak said. “I agree with that, but it’s 100% not normalized in our business, and it's done kind of on the fringes. I’m trying to get us to normalize those processes.”

Creating innovations isn’t something done alone in a box. Novak relies on a multitude of ideas from various people. People drive the best ideas and make necessary process improvements. And it isn’t just diversity in ethnicity in people that’s important; it’s also diversity in the experience.

“And in our industry, we have all of them,” Novak said. “I focus on collaborating with all the different layers within our industry.”

Concrete is an important building material in the data center construction process. But what Novak and her team look at is ways to improve that process to make it more efficient, stronger and more sustainable.

“There are so many advantages to concrete,” Novak said. “It’s affordable. It’s readily available. It’s fireproof. CarbonCure is one of the things that helps supplement the cement part of it.”

And Novak mentioned other technologies could be layered on to this process to make it even more sustainable.

The need for co-location space is growing in Europe, as demands for data storage are at unprecedented levels and have been for several years. Specifically, London is one of the largest areas of need.

“There’s an absolute feeding frenzy at the moment of developer operators trying to secure land. And then there are the usual issues around power, planning, fiber and risks. The prices of these sites are going through the roof at the moment," Jay said.

Due to the lack of real estate around London and the high demand, there is intense competition for sites. And Jay said he’s seen deals around London going north of six million pounds per acre.

With London pricing many out of the market, what’s the next area of opportunity for data centers? Jay said North London, where there’s a lot of land interest.

“What we haven’t seen is East London yet, and we have a couple of really good quality data center builds there, but the demand hasn’t quite got there yet,” he said.

As for the state of data centers in other European markets, Jay cited Milan as an example.

“For years, there was no demand there. Suddenly, about three to four years ago, we got calls from people asking if we had any land available in Milan," he said. "So, that market’s gone from being a 15-megawatt to a 60-65-megawatt market.” And Jay believes that could easily double shortly.

One of the cornerstones of DatacenterDynamics’ success is its events, which they’ve done for years and utilize to bring the data center community together.

But the pandemic changed all that, and live events planned for 2020 have turned into all-digital formats. “Once we got the hang of the fact that we could do these online events successfully, these events became actual replacements for the physical ones,” Judge said. “Since the beginning of lockdown, we’ve had eight online events, which, by and large, have gone along rather swimmingly,” Judge promised that, as soon as a physical event can happen, DatacenterDynamics will have one.

Looking at the data center industry and the advancements propelling it, Judge pointed to open-source architecture and software leading the way, even if that pace is not flashy. “The open compute project is one of the exciting things of the last few years,” Judge said. The result is building a cloud service inside of a data center that benefits from cheaper hardware.

A frequently asked question in terms of technology advancements and data centers is, as compute functions get miniaturized, efficient and use less power, will the need for data centers shrink? “The answer to that question is the reverse,” Judge said, “We will use vastly more data centers, because they are getting more efficient.” Judge cited Jevons Paradox, which occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use). Still, the rate of consumption of that resource rises due to increasing demand. Data centers will survive, and Judge sees the need growing now and into the future.

Judge started his career in tech journalism back in the 80s at the beginning of the personal computer revolution. “Journalism, when I started, was about phoning people, going to meet them, typing up the notes on a manual typewriter, and sending it to someone else to typeset it,” Judge said. “These were a whole lot of core processes that no longer exist.” One of the first changes, Judge noted, was his company got a DEC rainbow PC, which they used to type and edit. And, from that point on, the advancements in technology kept moving forward.

Judge recalled many of the advancements in computing, like the personal computer and the internet. “We thought that personal computers were kind of fun, useful, but we didn’t foresee how fast they would change things,” Judge said. The same holds for the internet, where no one could predict how important a role it would play in everyone’s lives. And, although Judge saw the potential for what the world wide web could do, he was wrong about one thing.

“I remember thinking that, when information is free, easy, and sharable and lives in this new internet world, it’s going to be really hard for lies to get spread,” he said.

As we’ve seen in the coronavirus pandemic, our society will need data centers, but the top two sources of energy used by the United States are still based on fossil fuels.

For Matt Crozat, the Senior Director of Strategy and Policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a more wholistic approach is needed.

“I think as we continue to see the economy evolve and embrace the role of data and digitization, I think making sure the energy system is evolving along with it to meet the goals we’re talking about - this isn’t just a nuclear question, this isn’t just a wind question or a solar question, it’s how we find the right tools to bring them all together at the same time,” he said. “I think those that are leading this economic evolution can also lead the energy evolution as well.”

There may still be a stigma around nuclear energy, which can conjure up images like the eerie scene painted in the 2019 HBO mini-series about the Chernobyl disaster. The infamous Three Mile Island incident sparked a series of reforms, though, that led to the creation of a stringent federal oversight body.

“That was a pretty serious wake-up for the industry. That set off a path to really emphasize safe operations and make sure these kind of challenges and threats were not be a feature going forward,” Crozat said.

Now, Crozat said, things are designed in a much safer way than they were when Three Mile Island opened in the 1970s and certainly than when Chernobyl opened in a way that even modern American scientists of the time wouldn’t have opted to design a reactor.

With safety measures in place and no dependence on fossil fuels, nuclear has a role to play in powering the data centers that are helping change our future.

Dunford joined host Raymond Hawkins to talk about CarbonCure’s process for introducing recycled CO2 Into fresh concrete to reduce its carbon footprint without compromising performance.

One of the challenges to achieving sustainability in concrete is the cementing agent, which provides approximately 90% of the carbon emissions from the material.

“The process necessary to create cement causes a chemical reaction that generates CO2,” Dunford said. “What CarbonCure is doing is taking a portion of CO2 from a post-industrial source, reintroducing it to concrete as it is mixed at the plant, and, as a result of that reintroduction, it will then chemically reform back as calcium carbonate or limestone.”

This process reclaims CO2 that would typically go into the atmosphere and traps it into the concrete, where it will stay in an embedded form for the entire lifespan of that structure.

Dunford notes the CarbonCure process doesn’t 100% eliminate CO2 from the production process of cement. Still, it does take away a portion of generated CO2 destined to be a pollutant. It uses it in a way that benefits the creation of concrete while lowering overall carbon footprint.

An added benefit to concrete made with the CarbonCure process is the injected carbon strengthens the concrete.

“By using this approach, you can use less raw materials and make the same end product in concrete,” Dunford said.

Yet the typically high-touch process has been complicated by social distancing regulations and other health precautions that are part of doing business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Compass Datacenters wanted to complete testing and certification for TierPoint’s new facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, it knew it needed to reduce on-site staff, so it used video-streaming tools and sensors where, typically, humans would step in.

“Once we decided we could do this potentially remotely, the distance by and large was down to CDC social distancing guidelines,” said Ricky Vasquez, Vice President of Data Center Facilities of TierPoint. “From a virtual perspective, it was done using various methods in the field, some of that live video feed.

“We also had a couple different Teams meetings active, one of which was in place to manage some building management system aspects of the project, as well as the field work that needed to be done. We had both of those going in parallel throughout the process.”

It was an innovative way to solve a problem posed by this crisis, even if it may not be one clients want to use if we can return to a world like the one we interacted with in 2019.

“I think the traditional approach is certainly going to win out overall and would be the preferred method – certainly from our perspective,” Vasquez said.

Of course, data centers are one of the few industries that have actually seen demand increase during the pandemic, with work-from-home setups requiring strong connections and plenty of people stuck on the couch utilizing streaming services.

“It’s been – I really hate to say business as usual – but I think for the most part it has been business as usual in an unusual time,” Vasquez said. “We’ve been able to conduct our normal business and do it very well.”

We all hope other businesses are able to get back to business as usual sooner rather than later, and even for the data centers, getting back to a hands-on commissioning process would bring huge benefits. Until then, Compass and TierPoint have worked out a process that is the next best thing.

Water was an afterthought, said Pedro Sancha, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Nalco Water, but that’s beginning to change.

With water needed to cool the data center, companies were bringing in Nalco after realizing they didn’t have the right permits or hadn’t worked out a way to bring in water effectively at all. Now it’s a main consideration when constructing the data center in the first place.

“They’re more proactive. They’re starting to engage us early in the process before they even decide where they’re going to build a data canter,” Sancha said.

Some are thinking big, like the Nalco client taking water from nature, utilizing it, cleaning it and putting it back into the world. Others are simply looking to be a bit more environmentally friendly or better understand how to lower costs. Many data centers are still using potable water, competing with average citizens for the general water supply.

“We do have technologies that help you optimize your cooling systems. Beyond choosing the right locations and the right cooling technology, there are ways existing data centers already can significantly reduce their water use,” Sancha said. “The irony is we need a lot of water to cool those data centers and support the technology revolution, but we also can use that technology to manage water in a smart way. That’s the full circle.”

Like the water cycle that brings us the precious resource to earth, it’s possible technology will help us create a positive loop, as well. For now, we can take heart that data centers are beginning to consider the implications of their setup on the aquatic world.

Dr. Eric Masanet and several colleagues decided to put it to the test. What they found is that, while demand for compute instances has gone up sixfold, the energy trend is close to flat.

With servers becoming more efficient and virtualization coming more into vogue, the data center has seen its energy per compute instance plummet.

“That has gone down by about 20 percent every year, and that pace of efficiency improvement is far greater than we can see in any other sector of the energy system,” Masanet said. “We wanted to point out that, even though the data center industry sometimes gets beaten up about its energy use or its contributions to climate change, that is really a remarkable energy improvement and better than nearly any other sector for which we have data.”

While the news is mostly positive for data centers, Masanet and his team also want to push for more data to be made available on data center energy consumption and sound a warning about major challenges on the horizon.

“We think there are three trends that really need to be better understood,” he said. “One is artificial intelligence, which should require a lot of computational intensity. The second is 5G, which could spur lots of new demand for data center services, and the third is edge computing, moving potentially some workloads and compute instances much closer to the end user in smaller data centers. We really don’t know yet how that’s going to play out from an energy perspective.”

The path certainly is not linear, but with progressive solutions, data centers can continue to be mindful about their energy use.

This increase in data need begs the question - what will our Internet look like as we move into a connected future post-pandemic?

“Not Your Father’s Data Center” explores this question and how edge data centers fit into Internet architecture with guest Phillip Marangella, CMO at Edge Connects.

As data needs goes up, what happens to the backbone of our network? Marangella said it’s all about alleviating the bottlenecks, tackling latency and 're-architecting' the internet.”

Edge data centers fit into the architecture by delivering cloud computing and cached content from smaller facilities that exist closer to the end-user. Their proximity improves speed and user experience.

But edge data centers cannot operate as silos, Marangella said. The success of future connectivity relies on interoperability between bigger data centers, wireless carriers and data providers. Though 5G is a hot topic of late, Marangella points out that billions have been invested into 4G, and, for many situations, 4G is sufficient. The future of 4G rests in optimization, while 5G will tackle indispensable latency issues like those associated with self-driving cars or airplane flight data.

The future of a high-performing internet that meets global connectivity demands lies in the successful collaboration between 4G, 5G, data centers, data providers and wireless networks.

“We sat down with a group of people to come up with an energy-efficient solution,” Matser said on this episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center.

He and his colleagues ran through their options, including traditional heat recovery, which is a popular strategy in Europe. Traditional heat recovery saves heat in winter by recovering and storing heat.

“When I looked at these techniques, I found you could use these techniques for a data center,” he said. “You don’t want to bring the air from the data center outside and exchange it for fresh air.”

Instead, two loops are created, one outside-air loop and one inside loop to transfer free cooling.

“We found the results stunning – in [The Netherlands]," Matser said, "we could save 90% of the energy required to cool the data center.”

In this episode, Matser and Jamie Nickerson, head of electrical and mechanical engineering at HED, joined host Raymond Hawkins to talk about the Kyoto Wheel by Kyoto Cooling.

Nickerson explained how the Kyoto wheel works.

“When you think about a traditional office building, most often, there is a direct air-side economizer to save resources when the outside has specific cooler conditions than inside,” Nickerson said.

As an example, he noted that, when you place hot soup in the refrigerator, not only is the environment making the soup cooler, but the soup can make the air around it warmer.

“When you have a data center, you have a lot of equipment generating a lot of heat,” Nickerson said. “We push cooler air into the space, absorbing the heat, then the air stream needs to reject the heat to continue the cycle.”

Rizer has been in the data center business since the beginning. Before he took the leap, Rizer took time to get to know the industry, then filled the data centers.

Rizer said that it was “such a new industry” that he was the only economic developer at trade shows. He also said that he was lucky to have investors and management “give him the budget and authority to get it done.”

On the topic of the industry’s inception, Rizer said that some entrepreneurs started in AOL and are still “driving the business which is exciting to us.” Dave Liggett said that it’s neat that Rizer has the perspective of where it started and where it’s going.

The conversation shifted toward the future and where the industry is headed in 2020. Being a capital intensive business, 2018 was a great year, but 2019 didn’t feel very good, and this had them worried a little.

The question came up: was it as bad as they thought? Liggett said that, in 2019, the industry players were “victims of their own success.” He said when investors see a great year, they ask, “How good can you do the next year?”

Fortunately, Liggett said he was “encouraged already for 2020 with the data we’re receiving.” The host said to keep some perspective, as “there aren't many 53% increase industries.”

Rizer then talked about the benefits and jobs that his data centers bring locally, turning the thought that data centers don’t bring jobs on its head.

Rizer predicted that, for the next east coast data centers, there is “still room to grow in Loudoun County, Virginia,” where he is located, or Atlanta and communities in Georgia.

He said that partnerships with power companies are key, and a distributed model could provide opportunities across the country and world.

There are two primary questions that come from this observation. Was there actually a lull? And what does 2020 look like?

Hawkins posed those questions to Ty Miller and Joe Goldsmith on a recent episode of Not Your Father’s Data Center Podcast.

Goldsmith said that he thinks the market volatility is regional.

First, he noted that he separates the corporate enterprise side of the business, because it is a bit more predictable. However, that is not the case for the cloud and service delivery portion of the market.

“[For] the folks that are making money with (cloud computing), it has been incredibly volatile,” he said. “I think that some providers are building out infrastructure hoping for more business, and there are some regions wherein they are so far behind the capacity curve, they’re scrambling to catch up. “

Miller said that he doesn’t think there was a lull at all.

He cited an example in Northern Virginia that may have looked like a lull. However, Ty noted that absorption was up from 2018, but was outpaced by supply.

He also echoed comments by Goldsmith regarding the hybrid enterprise portion of the business.

“Five years ago, you’d see a large enterprise deployment in the megawatt measurement range between 1 and 2, or even 5 megawatts,” Miller said. “Now, about 75% of that workload seems to be going to the cloud. Those are from entities who formerly procured as many as 5-times that amount.”

He said this speaks to massive growth.

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