Infrastructure & Hardware

Connectors for data centres can improve energy efficiency

Energy costs can account for more than 50% of the total operating expenses of a data centre. To calculate the exact effect of power usage from connectors in data centres, HARTING has compared the power consumption of three different connector solutions in its independently accredited test laboratory. One of the connectors tested was the HARTING Han-Eco. The other two were CEE (IEC 60309) plugs from different manufacturers. The results showed that the Han-Eco connector reduced power wastage by up to 50% by using low-impedance contacts. These contacts reduce the power lost in connections and significantly improve the Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) of data centres. As a result, one hyperscale data centre with 15,000 racks could achieve annual power consumption savings of around £100,000. Download your free whitepaper now to learn how HARTING connectors can improve your power usage efficiency (PUE) and reduce the lifetime costs of operating a data centre. For more from HARTING, click here.

LINX board election results revealed

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), operating one of the world's largest internet exchange points, facilitating traffic exchange between internet service providers (ISPs) and content networks, has announced the results of its 2025 board election, held during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 2 June in London. This year, two board positions were up for election. Incumbent members Neil McRae and Pete Stevens stood for re-election, while Paul Dunbar (Akamai) and Nico Walters (CMC Networks) were nominated as new candidates. Following the election, Neil McRae and Pete Stevens were re-elected to serve a new three-year term on the LINX board. Neil McRae has been involved with LINX since its birth back in 1994 and has served as a LINX board member for many years. He comments, “For me, being part of LINX is not just professional—it’s deeply personal. I believe that connectivity is a powerful equaliser that opens doors to opportunity, and I speak from personal experience, having built my career through self-taught skills and a relentless drive to learn and contribute. LINX is a crucial platform in enabling its members to connect people.” Pete Stevens is an active member of the LINX community and is also grateful to be re-elected. He adds, “I’m thrilled with what has been achieved during my time on the LINX board. I’ve become Vice Chair of the board and the Chair of the Finance, Risk, and Audit subcommittee. During my tenure on the board, we’ve appointed a new CEO, CFO, and changed our auditors to RSM. We’ve opened multiple internet exchanges around the world and now have five exchanges regularly pushing over half a terabit of traffic—one of which is less than twelve months old. I have also served on the governance committee which has now completed revising all the founding documents of LINX. This is a necessary development to place LINX on a firm legal footing for the future whilst still protecting member interests.” The LINX board plays a crucial role in guiding the strategic direction and governance of the organisation, aiming to ensure it meets the evolving needs of its membership and the broader internet community. Jennifer Holmes, CEO of LINX, says, “We’d like to thank all the candidates for standing for election. The voting this year was quite competitive, which reflects the strong interest in LINX as a membership-run organisation within the membership. I'd like to thank Neil and Pete for their dedication to the role so far and congratulate them on their re-election. LINX holds board elections every year so I look forward to welcoming more candidates into the process next year." For more from LINX, click here.

Proof-of-concept for immersion cooling data centres in Italy

Castrol, a British multinational lubricants company owned by BP, has supported the launch of a proof-of-concept for immersion-cooled data centres in Italy by MGH Systems and Dacta. The proof-of-concept project, involving Castrol’s immersion cooling fluids and thermal experience, has been launched in collaboration with Submer (the tank provider) and Compal (the server provider). It marks a step forward in efficient data centre operations and the growth of liquid cooling in Italy. It also aims to showcase how the data centre industry can future-proof itself and keep up with increased computing demand. Peter Huang, Global Vice President of Data Centre Thermal Management at Castrol, says, “The Italian data centre industry is booming: investments are expected to double to €10 billion between 2025-2026 compared with the previous two years. However, to make the most of this opportunity, the industry must innovate – so we’re pleased to help drive the adoption of immersion cooling in Italy. “Our recent industry research indicates that traditional air cooling systems struggle to handle increased computing demands from AI and edge computing applications, with 74% of data centre experts believing immersion cooling is now essential to meet current power requirements. By working closely with other industry experts on this project, we aim to showcase how immersion cooling can create more efficient, future-proof data centres that are reliable and scalable.” This project will be based in the heart of Italy’s data centre market in Vimercate, a Northern Italian town that sits just outside Milan. In recent years, the region has become a central hub for future growth in the sector, with Equinix, Vantage, Microsoft, Amazon-AWS, and others investing billions into the area. The deployment will use Castrol ON’s Immersion Cooling Fluid DC 20, a single-phase dielectric coolant with improved thermal management performance that is designed to enable stable and more efficient cooling of data centres. Marco Brivio, MGH Systems Founder, comments, "As our first deployment in Italy, this proof-of-concept puts the country firmly at the forefront of efficient data centre innovation, with collaboration between Castrol and Submer proving critical to bringing this vision to life. This early deployment demonstrates that MGH and Dacta are deeply committed to supporting the evolution of IT technologies towards High Performance Computing and AI. As designers and integrators of immersion cooling systems, MGH and Dacta are driving more efficient use of data centres, significantly improving both IT power density per square metre and overall energy consumption." Franco Caroli, Southern Europe & Africa Sales Director at Submer, adds, “This deployment is the outcome of a strategic collaboration that redefines how we approach efficiency, resilience, and sustainability in digital infrastructure. Working alongside MGH Systems, and in collaboration with Castrol and Compal, it showcases how we ensure that a deployment isn’t just technically sound, but also commercially scalable. It sets a precedent for what the future of data centres in southern Europe can look like.” For more from Castrol, click here.

Nebius launches in the UK

Nebius, an AI infrastructure company, today announced the expansion of its global AI infrastructure footprint with a deployment of NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs in the UK. The deployment should enhance the UK’s national digital infrastructure and drive long-term economic growth by enabling British firms – from start-ups to enterprises – to build AI using one of the world’s most advanced compute. It should also support the UK’s world-leading academic and research communities and public services, including the NHS. Arkady Volozh, Founder and CEO of Nebius, says, “We’re pleased to be providing compute infrastructure that will support future innovation by British businesses, researchers, and the public sector. The UK is where AI is being built, tested, and deployed at scale across industries from fintech to life sciences. Being here puts us closer to the start-ups, researchers, and enterprise leaders shaping what’s next.” Nebius’ first investment in the UK is the latest milestone in its buildout of AI infrastructure to support AI innovation at scale. With the addition of the UK, Nebius will operate seven AI clusters in six countries across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, making the company one of the largest independent AI infrastructure builders globally. The deployment of thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs in the UK is expected to be operational during Q4 2025. Nebius AI Cloud leverages the NVIDIA accelerated computing platform, and the company is the first Reference Platform NVIDIA Cloud Partner headquartered in Europe. Dave Salvator, NVIDIA Director of Accelerated Computing Products, comments, “Local infrastructure gives enterprises and start-ups in every nation a foundation for building their own AI-enabled future. Nebius’ UK-based NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra infrastructure will support British innovators in developing and deploying advanced reasoning, agentic, and physical AI applications.” The GPU deployment supports a key objective laid out in the UK government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan to build up Britain’s domestic compute capacity. As well as benefiting British AI innovators and enterprises, the AI infrastructure being delivered by Nebius should contribute to supporting job creation and attracting additional investments into the UK’s AI economy. Nebius recently launched its first specialist offering with a team led out of the UK to support the healthcare, life sciences, and biotech sectors. Other British customers include companies in financial services and generative AI, as well as research institutes such as the London Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Nebius’ team in the UK also contributes to AI research, with in-house AI R&D also led out of London. For more from Nebius, click here.

New Kao Data campaign highlights women

Kao Data, a developer and operator of high-performance data centres, announces the launch of 'Critical Careers: Celebrating Women in Digital Infrastructure,' a new campaign that highlights the stories, careers, and contributions of women across the digital infrastructure sector. With the sector evolving at unprecedented speed to support AI, cloud, and enterprise innovation, the project brings together interviews with women from all backgrounds, geographies, ages, and disciplines. From engineering to real estate, from marketing to HR, the women featured in Critical Careers represent a wide spectrum of roles and life experiences. Many are well-known industry leaders, while others may be less familiar by name. “Critical Careers aims to celebrate the remarkable women who are thriving in digital infrastructure. We wanted to take an in-depth look at the countless, impactful contributions women from all disciplines and at all stages of their careers are making to the industry,” says Kalay Moody, Chief People Officer at Kao Data. “What we discovered is that no two stories are the same, but together they reflect the importance of diverse experiences in driving progress and innovation in mission critical infrastructure.” “Women in the data centre industry bring a balance that is essential for holistic problem-solving and innovation. By integrating different perspectives and approaches, teams can achieve more balanced and effective solutions,” comments Cláudia Alves, Strategic Negotiator, Google. “Critical Careers is showcasing all the ways women are making a difference in the data centre industry and that there’s no one way to lead, contribute, or succeed.” For more from Kao Data, click here.

Conapto and Vertical Data announce partnership

Conapto, a Swedish sustainable data centre provider, and Vertical Data, a provider of enterprise AI business solutions, have jointly announced a strategic partnership aimed at delivering scalable, secure, and environmentally sustainable AI infrastructure. With digital transformation accelerating across industries, businesses are increasingly seeking partners who can provide robust IT infrastructure while maintaining a strong commitment to sustainability. This collaboration brings together Vertical Data’s experience in provision of GPU-based AI infrastructure with Conapto’s AI-ready, climate-friendly colocation services. “We’re excited to partner with Vertical Data to meet the rising demand for AI and data-driven infrastructure,” announces Stefan Nilsson, CCO of Conapto. “This collaboration allows us to extend our value to customers by providing turnkey, AI-optimised environments that are both sustainable and performance-driven.” Vertical Data will leverage Conapto’s Stockholm-based data centres to support its growing customer base in Sweden. These facilities are powered by 100% renewable energy and incorporate heat reuse for district heating, as well as grid support to the national grid. “This partnership allows us to extend our capabilities and offer our customers reliable, high-performance infrastructure with sustainability built-in,” says Hamid Djam, CTO at Vertical Data. “Conapto’s track record and vision make them the ideal partner as we continue to scale.” For more from Conapto, click here.

LFB launches Lennox-branded fan wall

Adding to its ApX Series range of cooling infrastructure for hyperscale and edge data centres, LFB Group, a European HVAC and refrigeration company, has launched its new Fan Wall Unit (FWU) - a modular cooling product built with the aim of meeting the demands of modern computing environments. LFB Group, following its transition from Lennox EMEA in April 2025, says its Lennox-branded FWU has a scalable cooling range from 100kW to 1000kW and comes with a compact footprint. It features electronically commutated (EC) fans, advanced coil designs, and customisable configurations, with a modular architecture allowing for capacity expansion. The company believes that, despite the rise in AI and both chip and rack densities, air cooling is still of importance. Matt Evans, CEO of the Data Centre Solutions business at LFB Group, says, "Cooling has always been one of the most pressing challenges facing data centre operators. But, with the rise in demand for data centres - as well as the rise in co-location data centres - we’re entering a new era where flexibility is being required more than ever before. "Our Fan Wall Unit is designed to deliver exactly that. It combines the performance figures, scalability, and adaptability that today’s environments require, without adding unnecessary complexity. The FWU showcases experience-led system design that integrates seamlessly into a variety of data centre footprints. "Our focus has always been on listening to operators, understanding their real-world constraints, and helping them solve the challenges that slow their growth. We see this as a collaborative journey - one that doesn’t end with installation, but continues as needs change, technology advances, and workloads evolve. The introduction of this tailored Fan Wall Unit represents a meaningful step forward, and we’re excited about the role it will play in shaping the next generation of digital infrastructure as part of a broader pipeline of innovations that are on the horizon.”

ZTE urges industry to rethink energy efficiency

ZTE Corporation, a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and systems company, showcased its AI-embedded solution for data centre infrastructure at Data Centre World Frankfurt 2025. As artificial intelligence becomes deeply integrated into every layer of enterprise and cloud computing, the foundation of digital infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Speaking at the event, Hans Neff, Senior Director of the CTO Group at ZTE, delivered a keynote address that challenged traditional efficiency metrics and static data centre models. He emphasised that in an AI-driven future, conventional benchmarks such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) are "no longer sufficient" to measure the performance and adaptability of modern data centres. In his address, Hans highlighted the paradox facing today's data centres: at the very moment when sustainability has become a strategic priority, AI is driving up compute intensity and energy demand at an unprecedented scale. He believes traditional benchmarks, originally designed for static, legacy systems, are no longer capable of capturing the complexity and dynamism of AI-driven workloads. "AI workloads are fundamentally different," says Hans. "They're denser, hotter, and more variable. To stay ahead, we can’t keep optimising for a world that no longer exists." ZTE says its approach, drawn from global deployments and internal R&D, envisions energy efficiency not as a fixed target, but as an evolving system. The company states that it is engineering data centres that sense, predict, and respond to changing computational demands in real time. In his keynote address, Hans also called on the industry to adopt more holistic metrics that better reflect the realities of modern data environments. He proposed a new composite framework that evaluates energy use not only by its efficiency, but also by its effectiveness in supporting intelligent operations, resiliency, and sustainability. "PUE is no longer enough," argues Hans. "We need smarter metrics that account for how power is used — not just how much." For more from ZTE, click here.

Shell launches Direct Liquid Cooling fluid

Shell, a British-Dutch multinational oil and gas company, is turning down the heat and turning up the performance in data centres with the launch of Shell DLC Fluid S3 — a Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) fluid designed to meet the demands of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI). This propylene glycol-based fluid aims to complement Shell’s existing cooling fluid portfolio and involvement in the data centre liquid cooling market. As data centers grow more powerful, traditional air-cooling struggles to keep up with the increasing heat generated by high-performance computing and AI. DLC fluids tackle this heat by targeting high heat load components to ensure densely packed server racks can continue to operate at optimal temperatures. By directly cooling high-performance components like Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), DLC fluids can improve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) by up to 27% (in comparison with the PUE of air-cooling) and reduce the need for energy-consuming air conditioning. Shell DLC Fluid S3 also meets the Open Compute Project (OCP) PG25 coolant specifications, including standards for material compatibility. Some features of the Shell DLC Fluid S3 include: · Long-term corrosion protection for all DLC cooling systems, including aluminium, brass, cast iron, steel, solder, and copper. · Heat transfer performance: Particularly, according to Shell, for high-surface-area copper-based heat sinks. · Compatible with a range of materials including metals and metal alloys, elastomers, plastics, and other wetted materials as per OCP guidelines. Its 2-ethylhexyl acrylate-, borate- and silicate-free formulation intends to provide improved metal and rubber compatibilities over competitive formulations. · Extended fluid life: Expected life of 6+ years, potentially four better than conventional inorganic acid technology (IAT) based fluids. · Leak detection: Dyed fluorescent green to help identify in-service leakage. · Freeze protection: Used in servers and electronic components to provide freeze protection down to sub-zero temperatures (−10°C/14°F) and help prevent corrosion. “With Shell DLC Fluid S3, Shell now offers both direct-to-chip and full immersion cooling solutions, and we’re not just keeping data centres cool in the age of AI — we’re powering the future of digital infrastructure,” says Aysun Akik, VP New Business Development and Global Key Accounts, Shell Lubricants. “We are continuing our commitment to innovation that delivers on performance, sustainability, and reliability to support our customers’ goals.” Aysun continues, “Our growing range of advanced liquid cooling solutions is designed to meet the diverse needs of modern data centres both today and tomorrow – and are backed by the strength of Shell’s global footprint, supply chain, and five technology development hubs around the globe.” For more from Shell, click here.

Aligned debuts its Advanced Cooling Lab

Aligned Data Centers, a technology infrastructure company, has announced the launch of its new Advanced Cooling Lab. The lab is dedicated to testing and developing Aligned’s air and liquid cooling solutions for Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and emerging AI accelerators. Aligned's Phoenix-based Advanced Cooling Lab has been designed to promote hybrid cooling environments and advance data centre infrastructure. The company's Delta Cube air-cooled system and DeltaFlow liquid-cooled system aim to ensure customers have the capacity and performance needed for AI and HPC workloads. “Aligned has been innovating data centre cooling for more than a decade,” says Michael Welch, Chief Technology Officer at Aligned Data Centers. “The Advanced Cooling Lab is a testament to our commitment to delivering cutting-edge data centre solutions and our passion for innovation. By investing in research and development, we can continue to provide our customers with the most flexible and advanced infrastructure available, capable of handling the dynamic demands of AI workloads.” For more from Aligned, click here.