News

SUBCO announces 'largest subsea build in Indo-Pacific history'

SUBCO, an Australian developer of undersea fibre optic cable networks, has announced three new subsea cable systems - APX North, APX East-2, and APX West - to provide additional connectivity capacity for AI and other data-intensive applications across the Indo-Pacific. APX North is a 9,500km, 24-fibre-pair system that will connect Sydney to Japan via Guam. It will be the first hypercable from Australia to connect directly to Guam, and the first system to provide direct connectivity between Japan and Australia. Like SMAP, APX North will include switched branching units, allowing selected fibre pairs to bypass landing in Guam and operate directly between Australia and Japan. APX East-2, meanwhile, is a 10,000km, 24-fibre-pair system connecting Guam to Los Angeles. It is intended to provide additional route diversity between the US, Japan, and Australia via Guam. Bevan Slattery, founder and Co-CEO of SUBCO, explains, “This segment is vital and will serve as the backbone for trans-Pacific traffic between Asia and the US, as well as providing diverse connectivity for Australia and Japan via APX North. We expect this system to be incredibly popular.” The third system, APX West, is a 4,600km, 24-fibre-pair system connecting Perth to Singapore, with branches to Jakarta and Batam in Indonesia. The system is designed to provide additional resilience and flexibility through switching in and out of regional interconnection hubs in Batam and Jakarta. Bevan continues, “Singapore and Indonesia remain critical to Asia's connectivity landscape, and their strategic importance will only grow as bandwidth demand accelerates. "New interconnection hubs are needed to deliver greater flexibility and route diversity. We are building as much of that as possible into our system design and making that available to our cornerstone customers through APX West.” SUBCO is targeting completion of all three systems in 2029. Connecting Australia and Southeast Asia “I know it’s ambitious, but it’s achievable and it’s necessary. We are finalising the details of cable supply and vessels and expect to be Contract in Force on all three systems by early next year,” says Bevan. “People have been slow to understand that AI factories are dead without massive subsea connectivity to carry tokens from factory to customers - hundreds and hundreds of terabits per second. That’s why we are about to undertake the single largest subsea infrastructure build ever by a carrier in the Indo-Pacific. "Not only is the build itself huge, but the timeframe is compressed with over 40,000km of cable to be installed in just over three years. Our team has signed up for the challenge and will grow significantly as each system reaches CIF.” For more from SUBCO, click here.

Datum progresses Farnborough data centre build

Alex Baker, Labour MP for Aldershot, has toured UK data centre provider Datum Datacentres' Cody Technology Park campus to see progress on FRN2, the company's second Farnborough data centre. The steel frame is now complete, with construction having moved to the roof. FRN2 is targeted to become operational in 2027, adding 22,000ft² (2044m²) of technical space and supporting up to 30kW per rack. The project is being delivered at Cody Technology Park, which Datum describes as one of the UK's most secure technology campuses. The development is expected to create skilled jobs during construction and operation. Alex Baker MP comments, “This is a hugely significant project for Farnborough which will help to provide the digital services that businesses in our area need to grow. "Datum’s business creates skilled jobs and valuable training opportunities for local people - directly and indirectly - while showing how investment in our digital infrastructure can support a more sustainable future. I look forward to returning when the new data centre opens its doors.” FRN2 construction reaches roof stage Mark Richards, Chief Financial Officer at Datum Datacentres, notes, “There aren't many places in the UK where you could build a facility like FRN2, and we're fortunate that one of them is our home. "The frame is up, the roof is underway, and, by 2027, this building will be supporting organisations across the country. It matters to us that our MP took the time to see the work while it's happening, because construction is the part of a data centre's life the public never usually sees.” The development follows construction of a similarly specified facility at Datum's northern campus in Manchester. Launched in June 2025, MCR2 is providing data centre capacity for the North West's digital economy. For more from Datum Datacentres, click here.

Sustainable Data Center Summit arrives in Dubai

The Sustainable Data Center Summit is a focused industry platform bringing together data centre operators, developers, infrastructure specialists, technology providers, consultants, government stakeholders, and other key decision-makers to examine the evolving requirements of sustainable digital infrastructure. As demand for cloud services, AI, high-performance computing, and digital connectivity continues to accelerate, data centres are facing increasing pressure to expand capacity whilst managing energy consumption, cooling requirements, power resilience, water use, and environmental impact. The summit provides a platform to address these challenges and explore practical approaches to developing more efficient, resilient, and sustainable facilities. The summit will explore key areas including energy efficiency and optimisation, advanced cooling and thermal management, resilient power infrastructure, renewable energy integration, sustainable data centre design and operations, water efficiency, carbon reduction, AI-ready infrastructure, and high-density computing. Through expert presentations, panel discussions, and industry networking, the event will bring together professionals from across the data centre ecosystem to exchange knowledge, examine emerging technologies, and discuss the strategies required to support the industry's next phase of growth. Taking place on 13 October 2026 at Millennium Airport Hotel Dubai, the Sustainable Data Center Summit will provide a dedicated platform for meaningful conversations around how the industry can meet rising digital demand whilst moving towards more efficient, resilient, and sustainable data centre infrastructure.

Advancing the agentic world

In this article, Chinese multinational technology company Huawei tells us about this year's Huawei Connect 2026: Huawei Connect 2026 kicked off recently in Shanghai. The first keynote of the date was by David Wang, the Deputy Chair of the Board and Rotating Chair at Huawei. In his speech (Advancing the Agentic World, Building a Solid Silicon Foundation), David highlighted the work the company is doing alongside industry stakeholders to build powerful AI infrastructure, lay a solid computing foundation, and address the challenges and opportunities in the intelligent world to come. AI is sweeping the world faster than any previous technological revolution. Today, foundation model parameters are rapidly approaching 10 trillion, and are projected to exceed 100 trillion by 2030. AI agents can now work on the same task continuously, for hours on end. By 2030, they will be able to handle tasks that span months. In China alone, the average number of inference tokens consumed every day has surged to around 500 trillion, and is expected to reach quintillions (10¹⁸) by 2030. On-device AI is also advancing rapidly. On-device models for smartphones have expanded from three billion parameters in 2024 to 30 billion today, and will push toward hundreds of billions in the near future. These trends will set a much higher bar for the scale, performance, and reliability of underlying technical systems. Only by building powerful AI infrastructure can the industry lay a solid foundation for the future intelligent world. An intelligent world is approaching – and faster than ever. To lead the charge into this new world, Huawei is laser-focused on building out AI infrastructure – the silicon foundation for the future to come. In particular, Huawei's AI strategy is centred on computing power, with a focus on monetising hardware. The company is also sharpening its competitive edge through systems and architectural innovation. Centring these efforts on SuperPoDs and SuperClusters, the company aims to build a solid computing foundation and offer a new option for the world. Huawei is a major contributor to open computing ecosystems, and will continue to support native training for mainstream foundation models on its systems, as well as supporting a vast range of models and applications. For customers, Huawei provides flexible on-premises and cloud compute solutions for its customers to accelerate intelligent transformation across industries. With diverse forms of compute, including solutions for micro-, low-tier, mid-range, and massive computing power – Huawei is driving the expansion of on-device and in-vehicle AI, making intelligence truly ubiquitous. Additionally, Huawei is dedicated to building next-generation communications networks to bring readily available compute and intelligence to every person, home, and organisation. SuperPoDs gain broad consensus, with adoption growing in industries, academia, and research institutes To date, over 1,000 Atlas 900 A3 SuperPoDs have been deployed, and Atlas 950 SuperPoD is seeing large-scale commercial use. While adoption continues to grow, SuperPoDs have gained broad acceptance across industry, academia, and research institutions as a key direction for AI infrastructure. Currently, a SuperPoD is explicitly defined as a computing system in which multiple computing nodes are tightly coupled through high-speed interconnect protocols, featuring unified memory addressing across physical nodes — functioning like a single logical computer. SuperPoDs are the go-to choice for AI infrastructure buildout. Right now, 100k-NPU computing clusters have become the baseline for training SOTA models. However, traditional server architectures result in intra-cluster communications that account for over 40% of total training time, severely constraining Model FLOPs Utilisation (MFU). Simulation results from Huawei's Markov Lab show that a 100k-NPU cluster built with 4k-NPU SuperPoDs can deliver a 2.75x increase in MFU compared to a 100k-NPU cluster composed of 8-NPU servers. 11-chip UnifiedBus-powered portfolio for SuperPoDs and SuperClusters; the Atlas 960E SuperPoD – the industry's first to use NPO The Ascend series of chips is the most critical component in Huawei's 11-chip UnifiedBus-powered portfolio for SuperPoDs and SuperClusters. Development on Ascend 960 has exceeded the company's expectations, with performance doubling as planned. Ascend 960DT will be available in Q1 2027, three quarters ahead of the company's original roadmap. And the Ascend 960PR will be ready in Q3 2027, one quarter ahead of schedule. "We're evolving our Ascend chip series on a one-generation-a-year cycle," says David in his keynote. "In 2028 and 2029, we will roll out the Ascend 970 and 980 chips, respectively. Thanks to the Tau (τ) Scaling Law, not only will their compute specifications continue to double, but you can also expect to see huge improvements across the board in terms of memory bandwidth, memory capacity, interconnect bandwidth, and more." In addition to Ascend chips, Huawei has also developed a complete portfolio of chips for AI infrastructure, based on UnifiedBus, delivering key capabilities that cover computing, interconnect, storage, and management. "SuperPoDs are designed to coordinate multiple NPUs through interconnect," continues David. "We have developed a next-generation optical interconnect product based on near-packaged optics (NPO): the High-density Optical-interconnect-Node Engine (Hi-ONE). Built on Huawei's proprietary technologies, Hi-ONE has a multi-physics design for balancing optical, mechanical, electrical, electromagnetic, and thermal performance, realising a transmission capacity of 7.2 Tbit/s per single engine. "This is the industry's first NPO product ready for mass production, delivering the largest transmission capacity. It is also the industry's first NPO product with a built-in light source." This product combines high bandwidth and high reliability with low latency and low power consumption. This, coupled with UnifiedBus, will make it far easier to scale up SuperPoD interconnect systems. Recently, Huawei submitted an implementation agreement (IA) on NPO to the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), a standards organisation. The response from numerous industry partners has been widely positive. Huawei will continue its efforts to further refine the NPO industry ecosystem. Using Ascend 960 chips and Hi-ONE, Huawei has developed the industry's first NPO-based SuperPoDs: the Atlas 960E SuperPoDs. A single Atlas 960E SuperPoD can scale up to 4,096 NPUs, delivering 8EFLOPS of FP8 compute performance, with up to 1PB of HBM capacity. With 5,500 Hi-ONE units, this SuperPoD doesn't need the 48,000 800G optical modules that would traditionally be required to connect all the NPUs. This cuts power consumption by over 550kW, while doubling the system's fault-free operating time, achieving 99.8% system availability. Combining the upgraded TaiShan 950 SuperPoD and context memory storage to power an ultrascale cluster with one million NPUs As SOTA models scale to 10 trillion parameters, training and inference can no longer rely on a single AI server or AI SuperPoD – they require a more complex computing system. This system includes AI SuperPoDs, general-purpose SuperPoDs, and an interconnect system that features peer-to-peer interconnect and zero protocol conversion. For inference, including a petabyte-scale KV cache cluster is also a must. To meet these demands, Huawei has fully upgraded its TaiShan 950 SuperPoD. Powered by UnifiedBus all-optical networking, this new SuperPoD supports up to 4,096 nodes with a unified memory pool of up to 256TB. This setup significantly improves agent performance. For sandbox-intensive workloads, startup speeds for 100,000 sandboxes are 30 times faster than traditional servers, and sandbox density can be improved by an additional 25%. For vector search across 10 billion x 1,000-dimensional vectors, this SuperPoD delivers twice the search efficiency of traditional servers. Huawei has also launched OceanStor M900 – a UnifiedBus-powered context memory storage cluster that delivers multi-tier KV caching for agent-heavy and longer-context workloads. Designed for agentic inference, this cluster supports one-hop direct access and provides a petabyte-scale KV cache for the L3.5 layer. OceanStor M900 also uses hybrid media and an optimised retention algorithm, extending SSD read/write lifespan by 16-fold. This ensures a higher KV cache hit rate alongside long-term stability and reliability from the ground up. Combining its strengths in computing and communications, Huawei has built a brand-new agentic SuperCluster to accelerate training and inference for 10-trillion-parameter models. This SuperCluster uses UnifiedBus to consolidate multiple interconnect protocols into a single unified protocol, significantly reducing protocol conversion overhead. This delivers peer-to-peer interconnect between subsystems like Ascend SuperPoDs, Kunpeng SuperPoDs, and KV cache clusters. The SuperCluster also comes with a multi-tier, high-bandwidth, and large-capacity storage system that enables direct single-hop access for all KV cache tiers. With a two-tier, four-plane Clos architecture, the SuperCluster can interconnect up to 512,000 NPUs. When combined with a multi-rail topology, this cluster can support up to one million NPUs. One of Huawei's core strategies: Going open source and open system to build out computing ecosystems The Kunpeng ecosystem is driving digital and intelligent innovation across a wide range of industries. To date, the Kunpeng ecosystem has attracted over 4.16 million developers and more than 7,200 ecosystem partners from around the globe. The community currently supports over 560 open-source projects worldwide. openEuler has seen more than 20 million installations, securing the largest share in China's server OS market. The Ascend ecosystem has reached a new inflection point. The Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN) is the foundation of the Ascend ecosystem. Today, CANN has moved to sustained, community-driven open-source development, which has brought the platform from usable to user-friendly. External CANN developers now comprise 61% of all CANN developers, outnumbering internal developers for the first time. With over 5,200 monthly active developers, the CANN community has become the most vibrant open-source community in China. What's more, over 40 models have been natively pre-trained on Ascend and CANN, making it the only proven domestic stack capable of model pre-training. Ascend now supports over 90 leading third-party open-source projects, including PyTorch, Triton, vLLM, and veRL. With strong support from the Linux Foundation, Ascend is the first official Chinese compute platform on PyTorch's website. This gives developers around the world ready access to new innovations in the Ascend ecosystem. Diverse forms of compute for ubiquitous on-device and in-vehicle AI AI is expanding faster into all kinds of devices. To deliver an unparalleled AI experience across all scenarios, Huawei will continue to strengthen capabilities in four key areas: First, Huawei will combine Kirin and Ascend chips to drive self-reliance and autonomy in on-device compute. Second, Huawei will bring together Pangu models and third-party models to make on-device intelligence better and easier to use. Third, HarmonyOS, as an Agent OS for ubiquitous intelligence, will be completely redefined from the ground up – spanning system architecture, how it operates, and interaction logic – to enable human-agent collaboration. Fourth, Huawei will keep cultivating a diverse AI ecosystem, which is the foundation for its system agent Celia to thrive. Huawei plans to build four on-device computing platforms: for AI phones, AI PCs, vehicles, and homes. Through cross-device and device-cloud compute synergy, Huawei will be able to provide distributed swarm intelligence, delivering integrated and continuous intelligent services across personal mobile, office, vehicle, and home spaces, ultimately bringing intelligence to every person and every space. Building next-generation communications that prioritise readily available compute, because without networks, all compute is siloed Next-generation communications networks are crucial for fully unleashing the value of AI compute. We are driving the upgrade to networks that, in addition to connecting people, will prioritise delivering readily available compute. These networks will be underpinned by 5G-A/6G, 10-gigabit optical networks, and multi-tier, low-latency bearer networks, delivering intelligent connectivity across data centres, the edge, and devices. Concluding his keynote, David expresses that AI "may well be the final technological revolution in human history," noting that its impact is deeper and broader, and coming faster than anyone could have ever imagined. "No single company," he says, "can build an intelligent world alone." He stresses Huawei's ongoing commitments moving forward: • Huawei will remain committed to building a solid silicon foundation to make computing power readily accessible to all.• The company will continue to open source its software, helping developers unleash their full potential.• It will continue to embrace a wide range of models and applications, unlocking value in every form. "And we will continue to work together to drive shared success, growing together with our customers and partners around the world," David concludes. "Let's work together to build a fully connected, intelligent world." Themed Advancing the Agentic World, Huawei Connect 2026 delved into AI across three dimensions: strategy, technology, and ecosystems. You can read about an in-depth look at our latest strategic initiatives, and we'll also be unveiling our all-new digital and intelligent infrastructure products, scenario-specific solutions for industries, and development tools. The event ran from 17 to 19 September at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center and Shanghai Expo Center. For more information, please visit Huawei Connect 2026 online by clicking here. For more from Huawei, click here.

Datacenter United signs multi-megawatt capacity agreement

Datacenter United, an independent Belgian data centre operator, has signed a binding agreement to provide multi-megawatt data centre capacity for AI workloads at DC Machelen in Belgium. The environment will use liquid cooling to support the power densities and heat loads associated with high-density AI systems. The customer's identity and commercial terms of the agreement will remain confidential. AI systems concentrate increasing amounts of computing power within a limited footprint, raising both the power required per rack and the amount of heat that must be removed. Power supply, cooling, connectivity, redundancy, and operations must, therefore, be engineered as an integrated environment. Liquid cooling removes heat closer to its source and can enable high-density configurations that are increasingly difficult to support with air cooling alone. The system at DC Machelen will be engineered around the customer's confirmed architecture and operational requirements. The agreement reflects demand for specialised AI infrastructure in Belgium, with the project moving from planning to deployment. Liquid cooling for high-density AI Friso Haringsma, CEO of Datacenter United, comments, “Demand for specialised AI infrastructure in Belgium is moving from ambition to actual deployment. "This binding agreement translates a specific customer requirement into a concrete, multi-megawatt project in Machelen. It demonstrates that a Belgian operator can support high-density AI workloads at this scale.” The liquid-cooling design is intended to support higher computing densities whilst improving cooling and energy efficiency. Datacenter United says the project also demonstrates the importance of access to power, connectivity, suitable locations, and predictable permitting for AI infrastructure development in Belgium. DC Machelen is designed for organisations with high power and capacity requirements. The site combines power, space, carrier-neutral connectivity, and the flexibility required for large-scale, high-density infrastructure. Technical implementation will proceed according to the agreed system configuration and deployment plan. Further information on the commissioning schedule is set to be provided at a later stage. For more from Datacenter United, click here.

iPronics, BSC advance optical networking for AI

iPronics, a developer of silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching, has announced a two-year technology collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) to advance programmable optical networking for GPU-based AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. The collaboration will bring iPronics's programmable optical switching platform together with BSC's research-class GPU and HPC infrastructure. The teams will investigate how dynamically reconfigurable optical connectivity can respond to the communication requirements of AI workloads. iPronics will provide its programmable optical switching platform, low-level software, and APIs, whilst BSC will develop software above the switch-management layer. The work will focus on networking approaches that align optical connectivity with AI applications. “AI infrastructure is reaching a point where scaling compute also requires rethinking the network,” says Christian Dupont, CEO of iPronics. “Networking needs to become more dynamic and more closely aligned with the behaviour of AI workloads. "Our strategic collaboration with BSC is an important milestone in bringing programmable optical networking deeper into the AI infrastructure stack.” Programmable optics for AI workloads The platform will be integrated into BSC's GPU and HPC infrastructure, allowing the teams to investigate networking approaches for AI training and inference, including large language models (LLMs) and mixture-of-experts (MoE) workloads. Antonio Peña, Leading Researcher and Group Leader at BSC, notes, “As AI and HPC systems scale, the interconnect is becoming an increasingly important part of overall system architecture. “Our collaboration with iPronics gives us the opportunity to explore how programmable optical networking and the software stack can work together to support more dynamic and efficient computing infrastructures.” The collaboration is intended to generate system-level insights that can inform the architecture of future AI infrastructure. The announcement follows iPronics's recent $125 million (£93 million) Series B funding round, co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, with participation from NVIDIA. The funding brings the company's total raised to $177 million (£132 million). iPronics has also opened a US office in Santa Clara, California, which it says will support its product strategy, customer deployments, and AI infrastructure partnerships. For more from iPronics, click here.

DataVita invites Greens, APRS to Chapelhall data centre

DataVita, a UK data centre and cloud services provider, has published open letters inviting Ross Greer MSP, Co-leader of the Scottish Greens, and Kat Jones, Director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), to visit its data centre campus at Chapelhall in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. The invitation to Ross also extends to his co-leader, Gillian Mackay MSP, with both letters welcoming colleagues, including planning and technical advisers. DataVita says visits can take place at a time convenient to the recipients. The Scottish Greens are expected to use an opposition debate on data centres to renew calls for a moratorium on large-scale data centre applications across Scotland. The proposed visits would provide an opportunity to see DataVita's existing operations, discuss construction under way at Chapelhall, and ask questions about its published proposals for a fourth data centre, DV4. DataVita, which is headquartered in Lanarkshire, has operated data centres in Scotland for more than 10 years. It built, owns, and operates its DV1 facility in Chapelhall, is constructing DV3 alongside it, and operates a second facility in Glasgow. The company says its facilities use renewable energy and closed-loop cooling, with plans for new facilities to contribute to Scotland's electricity grid. DataVita recently secured around £300 million in funding from a syndicate of lenders, including the UK Government's National Wealth Fund, to expand DV1 and build DV3. The company says this will support the development of Scotland's first AI data centres within a designated AI Growth Zone. UK Government figures estimate that, if fully adopted, AI could be worth up to £47 billion a year to the UK economy over the next decade. DataVita says the wider data centre campus could also support more than 3,400 new jobs and more than £8 billion in private investment in North Lanarkshire. More immediately, the expansion of DV1 and development of DV3 are expected to create around 600 construction jobs, as well as around 100 permanent high-skilled roles once completed. Data centre plans and public discussion The Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone features a Community Investment Fund that will provide up to £543 million in direct funding to North Lanarkshire over 15 years. This includes skills and training programmes in AI, coding, and other areas of technology for local people, alongside support for local food banks and charities, delivered in partnership with the community. Danny Quinn, Managing Director of DataVita, comments, “Nearly all of us use data centres every single day whether we realise it or not - from being able to use online banking and working from home, to scientists delivering groundbreaking medical research. They are the critical infrastructure that makes many of the things we do in modern life possible, and that is only going to accelerate as technology becomes even more entwined with daily life. “For more than a decade, we’ve been supporting Scotland’s public services, businesses, and even households to take advantage of the many benefits from online services. And, although AI is very much a hot topic at the moment, there is no doubt it is here to stay, and the question for Scotland is how can we best use it to support jobs, skills, the public services we all rely on, and the way we live more generally. “DataVita fully supports an open, public debate about the right kind of controls to have in place for AI and, where necessary, government action to protect our economy, society, and environment. But, the importance of the decisions we make about AI for Scotland's future economy cannot be overstated. We need to move beyond a debate in which one side has to be entirely right and the other entirely wrong. “Where opinions differ, open and honest dialogue is the best way forward. A visit gives us the opportunity to show how our facilities operate and have a detailed conversation about our plans. We can explain the choices behind their design, hear the questions people have, and discuss them directly. “Data centres differ in what they do and how they are designed and operated. We would welcome the chance to explain how those differences apply to our facilities and proposals, and we are making these invitations public because the developments are of public interest. “People should be able to see that we are willing to explain our work, listen to different views, and have a constructive discussion. We hope the invitations will be accepted.” The letters are published in full on the DataVita website. For more from DataVita, click here.

techUK calls for 10-year digital infrastructure strategy

Trade association techUK has called on the UK Government to publish a 10-year 'Digital Infrastructure Strategy' by 2027, warning that economic growth, productivity, and national resilience depend on stronger digital infrastructure. The organisation’s latest report argues that connectivity, compute, and data infrastructure are now as fundamental to the economy as transport, energy, and housing. It says the UK’s digital technologies already contribute an estimated £286 billion in annual Gross Value Added (GVA), equivalent to around 13% of national output. The UK is home to Europe’s largest data centre market, alongside research capabilities in quantum, photonic, and neuromorphic computing, whilst full-fibre broadband and 5G Standalone deployment continue to expand. However, techUK warns that high industrial electricity prices, lengthy grid connection times, planning constraints, and comparatively weak network performance are limiting investment and threatening the UK’s competitive position. Five objectives for 2035 The report sets out five objectives for 2035: universal full-fibre and 5G Standalone coverage, with commercial 6G deployment underway; a globally competitive position in next-generation compute; electricity prices below the IEA median; governance and planning frameworks that can keep pace with technological change; and widespread digital adoption across the UK. To support these objectives, techUK recommends a coordinated programme of government and industry action. This includes establishing a cross-government digital infrastructure strategy, appointing a Minister of State with responsibility for its delivery, and creating a dedicated digital infrastructure unit within the Regulatory Innovation Office. The organisation also calls for an interim update to the UK Compute Roadmap by 2027, covering neuromorphic, photonic, and quantum computing, alongside measures to develop commercial supply chains. On energy, techUK recommends a roadmap to bring non-domestic electricity prices below the IEA median by 2035. Its proposals include moving electricity levies to general taxation by 2029 and accelerating grid connection reforms. Sophie Greaves, Associate Director for Digital Infrastructure at techUK, argues that the UK needs to treat digital infrastructure as a national economic priority. She says, “Digital infrastructure is no longer simply an enabler of economic activity; it is the foundation on which future economic growth, innovation, and national resilience will be built. The countries that invest now in connectivity, compute, and data infrastructure will be best placed to capture the economic opportunities of the next decade. “By following the roadmap we have set out for a resilient digital infrastructure by 2035, the UK can secure its position as a leader in compute, bringing significant benefits to the economy.” techUK warns that failing to address these infrastructure challenges could result in slower growth, weaker productivity, reduced investment, and greater dependence on infrastructure and technologies developed elsewhere. For more from techUK, click here.

Schneider Electric expands prefabricated power portfolio

Global energy technology company Schneider Electric has launched a range of standardised Prefabricated Power Modules and Power Skids for hyperscale, neocloud, and colocation data centres supporting AI and high-performance computing workloads. Powered by the company’s Galaxy VXL UPS technology, the prefabricated power modules provide up to 2.5MW of capacity per module. Standard configurations are available at 2MW, 2.25MW, and 2.5MW, allowing multiple units to be deployed as repeatable power blocks across larger data centre campuses. The systems are based on Schneider Electric’s reference designs with NVIDIA, including integrated power management and liquid cooling controls for the GB300 NVL72 platform. They are intended to support AI training clusters and other GPU-intensive workloads. Standardised systems target faster deployment Schneider Electric says traditional customised prefabricated power systems can require lead times of 12–14 months. Its standardised approach is intended to simplify specification, design, and manufacturing, with production possible in as little as six months. The modules combine UPS, switchgear, cooling systems, lithium-ion batteries, busway, and power distribution within a factory-tested enclosure. The power skids provide similar electrical infrastructure in an open format for indoor deployment. Tarunjeet Sarao, SVP Data Center Systems at Schneider Electric, says, “Today’s data centre operators are under immense pressure to deploy AI-ready infrastructure faster, more efficiently, and at greater scale. “By standardising our prefabricated power systems and incorporating our leading Galaxy VXL UPS technology, we are enabling hyperscale, neocloud, and colocation providers to deploy scalable, high-density power infrastructure in months rather than years.” The modules and skids are engineered, manufactured, and tested at Schneider Electric’s facility in Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona. The products are available immediately in Europe, with North American availability planned later this year, followed by other international markets and APAC. For more from Schneider Electric, click here.

Aggreko achieves grid code compliance across Europe

Aggreko, a British multinational temporary power generation company, has achieved grid code compliance for its 1.5MW generator fleet across 11 European countries, allowing the company to support data centres and other large power projects facing grid capacity constraints. The certification covers the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, and Czechia. It allows Aggreko’s generators to integrate with public electricity networks for applications including additional generation capacity, peak demand management, exporting power to the grid, and grid balancing. Aggreko says the certification can also help accelerate large-scale power projects, with gas-powered generation of more than 50MW potentially deployed within months while longer-term grid infrastructure is developed. Generation supports grid capacity The company says decentralised generation can help address capacity shortfalls, support renewable energy integration, and reduce pressure on electricity networks. Aggreko has previously supplied 43MW of power to Romania’s national grid over four years, using a combined heat and power system while providing grid balancing services. Connor Docherty, Head of Product for Gas at Aggreko, suggests, “Decentralised energy will have a critical role to play during this critical period, which is where grid code compliance comes into play. “With the ability to integrate with grid infrastructure, we can support grid operators and high energy users alike through decentralised energy generation. This will help to balance the grid, make up capacity shortfalls to ensure that large power projects can go ahead, assist increased renewable integration, and avoid blackouts.” Aggreko says that its fleet also incorporates remote monitoring and control systems for equipment diagnostics and plant-level analytics. For more from Aggreko, click here.