Events

AMD announces its future vision for data centre and AI

AMD has announced its vision for the future of the data centre and pervasive AI, showcasing the products, strategy and ecosystem partners that will shape the future of computing. The 'Data Center and AI Technology Premiere' highlights the next phase of data centre innovation. The company was joined on stage with executives from Amazon Web Services, Citadel, Hugging Face, Meta, Microsoft Azure and PyTorch to showcase the technological partnerships to bring the next generation of high-performance CPU and AI accelerator solutions to market. “Today, we took another significant step forward in our data centre strategy as we expanded our 4th Gen EPYC processor family with new leadership solutions for cloud and technical computing workloads, and announced new public instances and internal deployments with the largest cloud providers,” says AMD Chair and CEO, Dr Lisa Su. “AI is the defining technology shaping the next generation of computing and the largest strategic growth opportunity for AMD. We are laser focused on accelerating the deployment of AMD AI platforms at scale in the data centre, led by the launch of our Instinct MI300 accelerators planned for later this year and the growing ecosystem of enterprise-ready AI software optimised for our hardware.” The company was joined by AWS to highlight a preview of the next generation Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, ‘Amazon EC2’, M7a instances, powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors, ‘Genoa’. AMD has introduced the 4th Gen AMD EPYC 97X4 processors, formerly named ‘Bergamo.’ With 128 Zen 4c cores per socket, these processors provide great vCPU density, performance and efficiency for applications that run in the cloud. Meta participated in discussing how these processors are well suited for their mainstay applications such as Instagram, WhatsApp and more. It has also unveiled the AMD 3D V-Cache technology, with x86 server CPU and shared its AI platform strategy, giving customers a cloud, to edge, to endpoint portfolio of hardware products, with deep industry software collaboration, to develop scalable and pervasive AI solutions. The AMD Instinct MI300X accelerator is one of the advanced accelerators for generative AI, along software ecosystem momentum, with partners PyTorch and Hugging Face. It is based on the next-gen AMD CDNA 3 accelerator architecture and supports up to 192GB of HBM3 memory to provide the compute and memory efficiency needed for large language model training and inference for generative AI workloads. Finally, there was a showcase of the ROCm software ecosystem for data centre accelerators, highlighting the readiness and collaborations with industry performers to bring together an open AI software ecosystem. PyTorch discussed the work to fully upstream the ROCm software stack. This integration empowers developers with an array of AI models that are compatible and ready to use on AMD accelerators. Hugging Face also announced that it will optimise its models on AMD platforms.

Schneider Electric and Total Power Solutions triumph at DCS Awards

Schneider Electric and Total Power Solutions have won the ‘Data Centre Consolidation/Upgrade Project of the Year’ category at the DCS Awards 2023. The project saw the companies design and deliver a new high efficiency Uniflair InRow Direct Expansion (DX) cooling system to the University College Dublin (UCD) and deploy a new EcoStruxure Row Data Centre solution at its Daedalus data centre. Together, Schneider Electric and Total Power Solutions reduced the universities data centre Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) from 1.42 to 1.37, helping it lower energy consumption and costs, while supporting its commitments to environmental sustainability. Further, parts of the cooling plant and equipment were relocated to the roof of the building, freeing up significant space for the redevelopment of new educational facilities, including an applied languages department. Modernising a live environment University College Dublin is the largest university in Ireland with a total student population of 33,000. It is also one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities, with faculties of medicine, engineering, and all major sciences, as well as a broad range of humanities and professional departments. As part of a new strategic development plan to free-up space at its central Dublin campus, the IT services department made the decision to revitalise its data centre cooling architecture, making it more energy and space efficient, resilient, and scalable. Total Power Solutions worked with Schneider Electric to deploy a new EcoStruxure Row Data Centre solution, which provided a highly efficient, close-coupled design that is suited to high density computing to support its research workloads. Further, the companies replaced the existing data centre cooling system with a Uniflair InRow DX solution, which offers many benefits including a modular design, more predictable cooling, and variable speed fans which help to reduce energy consumption. "University College Dublin one of the world’s leading research-intensive universities, renowned for its commitments to fostering innovation and providing a dynamic student experience. Central to this is the continuity of its data centre,” says Mark Yeeles, Vice President, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric, UK and Ireland. “I’m proud to accept this award on behalf of Schneider Electric and Total Power Solutions, which recognises how this new state-of-the-art infrastructure system will not only enhance UCD's resilience but will provide significant environmental benefits going-forward." “The Daedalus data centre serves as the beating heart that powers all essential operations on campus. From the academic research and HPC clusters to the centralised IT system, it ensures seamless functionality across the institution,” says Paul Kavanagh, Managing Director, Total Power Solutions. “This award is testament to the use of innovative technology and engineering, which ensures the university can continue operating without any downtime and can support both its students and sustainability ambitions for the many years ahead.”

DataCentres Ireland - registration now open!

Now in its 13th year, DataCentres Ireland will be held at the RDS on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 November, and brings together everyone involved in the dynamic and fast-growing Irish data sector. DataCentres Ireland’s multi-streamed conference will discuss the issues and opportunities affecting both the Irish and the wider DataCentre sector. The multi-streamed conference will look at the strategic issues and opportunities driving the sector, whilst the operational stream will look at the practical issue that can make your IT Infrastructure more effective and efficient whilst remaining safe, secure and resilient. Call for papers The conference programme is currently under construction. However, if you have a case study you think will be of interest to this audience of decision makers simply go to the website: Datacentres-ireland.com and hover over the tab and download the paper submission form at the end of the drop down box. Background to DataCentres Ireland DataCentres Ireland has consistently delivered a quality audience of decision makers and specifiers responsible for the Irish data centres sector and beyond. The exhibition is your opportunity to showcase you, your company, and the products, services, technology and solutions you offer to all involved in the sector in just two days in November (22-23).  Last year, over 125 companies secured their stand within the DataCentres Ireland Exhibition, as they recognised the business opportunities that can be achieved from meeting a quality audience of buyers and decision makers. Join the growing list of exhibitors Whether your objective is direct sales, to secure partnerships, to get invitations to tender, or launch new products and services, whilst re-enforcing existing relationships and making new industry contacts, exhibiting at this event will benefit you! To find out more about DataCentres Ireland simply go to datacentres-ireland.com or call Hugh and the team on +44 (0)1892 779992. DataCentres Ireland - new event sponsors The organisers are delighted to announce: Iron Mountain has become the Lead Conference Sponsor Riello UPS has repeated its Platinum Sponsorship for 2023 Africa Data Centres has become the Strategy Stream Sponsor Solar Turbines is sponsoring the event lanyards again for 2023 The organisers would like to thank these companies for their continued support of DataCentres Ireland, which confirms the event's ability to deliver a relevant and active audience that matters. Hear what delegates said about last year’s event “Great show this year...the best yet.”Eddie Kilbane, CEO, Kilon Holdings “Great event…one of the best I have been to in recent years.”James Rix, Project Director, Accredited Sustainability Advisor, Arcadis Consulting “Well attended event at all levels, stimulating and relevant conference topics with a diverse vendor expo. Ireland shows its data centre credentials…again.”Derek Webster, CEO, Andget To find out more about DataCentres Ireland simply go to datacentres-ireland.com

Electricity 4.0 – a faster path to sustainable data centres

Over the last 250 years, four technology-driven revolutions have simultaneously impacted the worlds of industry and electricity. The convergence of digital and electric (what we call Electricity 4.0) presents an enormous opportunity to decarbonise both energy supply and demand. Critical to addressing the climate crisis, a more electric and digital world is the fastest path to net zero. Join Schneider Electric on 25 May at 2pm. BST to learn how Electricity 4.0 will enable the future of data centre sustainability and resilience. REGISTER TO ATTEND

DataCentres Ireland: new dates, new sponsors – and why you should be part of this industry leading event

For the last two years, DataCentres Ireland has been held on the same dates as those of the Paris based Data Centre Show. This was not ideal for either event, as some exhibitors and delegates were unable to attend both and had to choose which to prioritise.  Behind the scenes, DataCentres Ireland has been working with its venue (the RDS) in Dublin, to see if new dates could be secured that do not compete with other Data Centre events held in Europe, in what is a busy autumn schedule. The organisers are now pleased to announce that they have finally managed to secure dates one week later, on 22-23 November 2023. The organisers have conducted a call round to the majority of exhibitors and visitors to get their views on this and in nearly all cases the change to 22-23 November 2023 has either not been an issue or actually welcomed by these target groups. Whether your objective is direct sales, secure partnerships, receive invitations to tender, or launch new products and services, whilst re-enforcing existing relationship and making new industry contacts, exhibiting at this event will benefit you! Background to DataCentres Ireland For over a decade, DataCentres Ireland has consistently delivered a quality audience of decision makers and specifiers responsible for the Irish data centres sector and beyond.  The Exhibition is your opportunity to showcase you, your company, and the products, services, technology and solutions you offer to all involved in the sector in just two days in November (22-23).  Last year, over 125 companies secured their stand within the DataCentres Ireland Exhibition, as they recognised the business opportunities that can be achieved from meeting a quality audience of buyers and decision makers. To find out more about DataCentres Ireland, simply log on to datacentres-ireland.com or call Hugh and the team on +44 (0) 1892 779992. DataCentres Ireland - New Event Sponsors  Iron Mountain has become the Lead Conference Sponsor. Riello UPS has repeated its Platinum Sponsorship for 2023. Solar Turbines is sponsoring the event lanyards again for 2023. The organisers would like to thank these companies for their continued support of DataCentres Ireland, which confirms the event's ability to deliver a relevant and active audience that matter. Datacentres Ireland - Hear what the Delegates said about last year’s event “Great show this year…the best yet” - Eddie Kilbane, CEO, Kilon Holdings “Great event…one of the best I have been to in recent years” - James Rix, Project Director, Accredited Sustainability Advisor, Arcadis Consulting “Well attended event at all levels, stimulating and relevant conference topics with a diverse vendor expo. Ireland shows its Data Centre credentials...again” - Derek Webster, CEO, Andget Ltd To find out more about DataCentres Ireland, simply log on to datacentres-ireland.com

Meet GF Piping Systems at Data Centre World Frankfurt

To help data centres simultaneously cut costs and boost efficiency, GF Piping Systems will display comprehensive corrosion- and maintenance-free piping systems as well as pre-fabrication support at Data Centre World 2023, hosted in Frankfurt am Main, Germany from10-11 May. Data centres are essential in the modern world to store and safeguard all of our data. We have globally produced and consumed around 100ZB of data in 2022, and it will already be around 180ZB in 2025, as forecasted by Destatis. Additional data centres must be constructed quickly and without delay in order to make space for more data. And these new facilities need to be operated sustainably, ideally as net zero buildings. GF Piping Systems supports the increasing construction speed needed for data centres with off-site manufacturing solutions, advanced engineering, Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing and COOL-FIT, a pre-insulated plastic piping system that optimises a wide range of refrigeration applications. It was developed as a solution to help data centres increase their energy efficiency. A PE100 vapour-tight carrier pipe, a highly effective and insulating foam, and an outer jacket made of high-density polyethylene make up the system's three components in one. The carrier pipe has smooth inner surfaces that prevent deposits, so it is corrosion- and maintenance-free. Moreover, a 30% better energy efficiency than metal alternatives is achieved by combining the low thermal conductivity of polyethylene with the highly efficient foam. Mark Stuart, Sales Director Data Centres Europe at GF Piping Systems, says, “We are aware of the challenges the industry faces; and therefore, we are pioneering innovation to make liquid cooling applications a reality for data centres of all sizes across the world, creating connections for life.”

Aggreko to offer deep dive on latest report at Data Centre World

Off the back of the company’s latest research report, Uptime on the Line, Aggreko will be attending Data Centre World in Frankfurt to advise on the tactical and strategic options available to solve the challenges facing the European data centre market. The report surveyed 700 data centre professionals consulting for large businesses in the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. It revealed grid power, outages related to ageing equipment, demand-side response (DSR) and temperature demands as key areas of concern for data centres, and highlighted the tactical and strategic approaches available to solve these long-term challenges. Lloyd Freitag, Sector Sales Team Leader Data Centres Europe at Aggreko, says, "While there are obvious concerns across the sector, there are methods that can be implemented to provide short and long-term solutions to help data centres strike the balance between efficiency, power and sustainability. We’re keen to discuss the themes highlighted in the report in person with data centre professionals from across Europe, in order to help signpost the way forward for the sector.” With the event set to take place in Germany, Aggreko is keen to address the challenges affecting the local data centre market. Namely, Reuters recently reported that the German grid’s transition to low carbon would cost €128.3 billion. Reponses to Aggreko’s report chime with this, with just under 40% of German respondents expressing a lack of confidence in government to support the uptake of renewables in data centres. Uptime on the Line highlights green energy solutions as a key strategic option in alleviating outages related to ageing equipment. Just last month, Aggreko announced it would invest £150 million in its European fleet this year. Most of this investment is centred on the business's ongoing Greener Upgrades business strategy, comprising new boilers, Stage V generators, batteries and chillers. Uptime on the Line, which looks at the operational challenges businesses face today, is the first in a two-part series on European data centres. The second report, to be released imminently, will examine issues relating to constructing new data centres. The team will be available on Stand A094 at Data Centre World 2023, which takes place at Messe Frankfurt on 10-11 May. See Aggreko’s latest report here.

Matt Dawson to help build team cultures at DTX + UCX Manchester

Manchester will play host to the north’s biggest digital and IT transformation event in May - with World Cup-winning rugby star, Matt Dawson, the former Director General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, and Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, headlining as the city gears up for Tech Week 2023. Digital Transformation EXPO (DTX) has been a firm fixture in the region for seven years, running previously as IP EXPO. The 2023 event will see the greatest gathering of enterprise IT and digital professionals yet - with thousands flocking to Manchester Central on 17-18 May for keynote speeches, regional case studies, interactive panels, technical workshops and community socials. In light of enterprise IT teams feeling mounting pressure to balance accelerated innovation with cost optimisation, the event will focus on the cornerstone theme: ‘Together We Transform’. Uniquely placed to encourage collaboration, the combined showcase DTX + UCX Manchester 2023 will connect leaders in cloud, networks, data, devops, cyber security and the modern workplace to tackle the coming challenges together. Attendees will discuss and debate how to optimise tech stacks, unravel legacy data systems, design a next-generation engineering strategy, operate feature-rich modern workplace toolsets, build threat-responsive ecosystems, and meet changing customer demands. Matt Dawson - who is fast approaching the 20-year anniversary of his World Cup victory - will reflect on a long and varied career in a keynote interview on ‘Finding your edge: how to overcome weakness, trust your intuition and lead a team through hard times’. He will offer insights on how to build a world-class team culture, the lasting value of critique to guide tactics and what it takes to be your best, on and off the field. Dame Stella Rimington - the first woman to become Director General of MI5, and dubbed the real-life M from James Bond - will share how to lead in times of challenge and change. Revealing how she has navigated a life of unexpected opportunities, Dame Stella will discuss why human insight is still critical to success when assessing information, even as artificial intelligence advances at rapid speed. Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, returns to close the show on day one with a first-look at the digital vision laid out in the Greater Manchester Digital Blueprint for 2023-2026. Other big hitters on the line-up include John Hobson, Chief Information Officer at Kellogg Company; Ben Morris, Global Director of Cyber Security at The Hut Group; Mivy James, Digital Transformation Director at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence; Adam Lindsay, Director of Business Operations at Groupon; Leanne Fitzpatrick, Director of Data Science at The Financial Times; Rob Black, Technology Director at Beauty Bay; and Risk Alkunshalie, Head of Technology at Manchester Airports Group. The brands behind cutting-edge enterprise IT technology will also be ready to showcase the tools needed to power a digital future. Taking centre stage are Dell, AWS, Okta, Ring Central, Blue Jeans, Threatlocker, Slalom Build, Sophos, Intel, Sentinel One and Gamma, along with many other exhibitors. Head of Research and Portfolio Development for DTX, Natasha Taylor, states, “Manchester is a world-leading hub of technology and innovation, which makes it the perfect place to host the biggest digital transformation and IT event the north has ever seen. “This year is going to be the best yet - featuring a phenomenal line-up of guest speakers, a huge variety of exhibitors and some surprises on the show floor. “We’re proud to bring together teams from all realms of the enterprise IT space, across every industry, to share ideas, tackle the latest challenges and troubleshoot tricky problems. Every year we witness the real-time collaboration needed to drive the delivery of ambitious transformation plans. “DTX + UCX Manchester is the place where great minds discuss ground-breaking ideas, and we can’t wait to hear what the big topics of conversation are this year.”

Winners announced for Data Centre World Awards 2023

The winners of the Data Centre World Awards 2023 were announced during a grand ceremony at Data Centre World on 8 March, taking place at ExCeL London. The awards recognised the people, innovations, and operations within the data centre industry that have gone above and beyond to achieve outstanding excellence in the sector. Special Contribution to Improving Energy Efficiency WINNER: EkkoSense (on behalf of Three UK) Three UK worked with EkkoSense to secure initial cooling energy savings across four sites of 200KW, representing a 10-15% data centre cooling energy saving in just 10 weeks. Most Successfully Delivered Data Centre WINNER: Vantage Data Centres In March 2021 Vantage was contacted by one of its strategic customers who urgently needed significant IT capacity in South Africa. A few months later, Vantage commenced the build of a major carrier-neutral data centre campus in Johannesburg (JNB11), its first in Africa. Delivery took place ahead of schedule in just 10 months, with zero lost-time incidents over 1.5 million working hours. Green Data Centre of the Year WINNER: CSC IOT Centre for Science CSC is the hosting entity and data centre provider for EuroHPC pre-exascale supercomputer LUMI. The LUMI site in Kajaani, Finland was selected due to availability of vast amount of local renewable energy and ability to utilise excess heat in to town’s district heating system. While having the potential of reducing 12,400 tons of CO2 annually, LUMI is able to save up to 40% of electricity costs by selling the waste heat. Best Data Centre Operator WINNER: Vantage Data Centres Vantage CWL11 Cardiff meets global, national and regional demand for colocation and hosting, all from a highly scalable single site campus at pricing half that of London. Opened for business in 2010, CWL11 is a continuously evolving colocation data centre operated by Vantage Data Centers, which acquired the 50-acres site from Next Generation Data (NGD) in July 2020. There has not been a single outage since the facility was opened in 2009. Environmental Product of the Year WINNER: Interact Interact offers a machine learning tool that addresses these issues by balancing embodied carbon, materials usage, and energy efficiency to get the best net environmental outcome. Its recommendations enable data centre managers to achieve the same or greater amount of compute power, with drastically reduced server footprint and energy draw. Special Contribution to Improving Resilience Through Innovation WINNER: ICTS ICTS’ Viridian started out as a simple dashboard, but through extensive consultation with data centre clients, it expanded into something much bigger. Viridian brings data centres physical security solutions together in one single, customisable platform. Data streams are contextualised dynamically assess risk and calculate optimal service delivery paths based on live-threat data and operational activities. ICTS incorporates all site-specific security procedures, KPIs, and the SLA into Viridian. Best Talent Developer WINNER: UTC Heathrow and partners UTC Heathrow and Partners provides an education that encourages life-long learning by empowering students with transferrable engineering skills to become responsible engineers to meet the needs of the data centre sector today and tomorrow. The ten partners supporting the Digital Futures programme include CNet Training, Virtus Data Centres, CyrusOne, CBRE, Amazon Web Services, LMG, ARK Data Centres (Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited), Yondr, Kao Data and Soben. Innovation Product of the Year WINNER: QiO Technologies QiO Technologies are an industrial IoT AI software products company supporting energy-intensive and asset-heavy industrial sector companies to rapidly deliver on their sustainability and net zero agenda.

The Data Leaders Summit (25 April, The Carlton Tower, Jumeirah, London) is a closed-room event for senior decision-makers in charge of data management, analytics, automation and insight. It’s an unmissable opportunity to get ahead of the latest trends, strategies and visions connecting the data ecosystem. Hear from industry trailblazers from the likes of BBC, John Lewis Partnership, Global, Cabinet Office Digital and more! Find out more here.  Please note that the Data Leaders Summit is only accessible to qualifying attendees.