Data Centre World London 15 Mar 2024
Last week studioNWA attended the Data Centre World London event. It was great to have the opportunity to listen to industry experts exploring interesting, current Data Centre topics. Here are some of our key learnings following the event and talks around the industry’s future trends.
Technical learnings:
· The impact of cooling technologies in the DC industry – The idea of repurposing existing DC to make them viable to AI.
· The notion that AI is more power hungry but simultaneously more cooling efficient.
· The need for a wider response to the energy conundrum – the implementation of renewable energies will not suffice on their own.
· The challenge of the Hybrid age – how we are at present designing an array of densities in the same building and how technology will become more inefficient before it becomes more efficient.
· The cooling and ventilation strategies of data halls and energy centres.
· More power means more batteries. Increased fire risk this will require more sprinkles & water mist solutions – what the best practise to cool the spaces as much as possible to avoid/in the event of a fire.
· The importance of designing and planning an infrastructure for future adaptability. A few key approaches were agility, modularization (for future enhancements), and modelling for design & technology flexibilities.
· How to maximise sustainability of existing solutions by prolonging prevailing asset lifetime.
ESG learnings:
· The impact of DC onto the wider society (and the need to work with the communities DCs implant themselves onto).
· The need to bring diversity into the industry, and the idea that talent can be sourced from other industries.
· The importance of education on diversity and how the DC industry can benefit form varied perspectives
Glazing ratios and solar shading devices designed to suit solar orientation ensure the building façade becomes more resilient to excessive heat gains and losses.
