Operations

Data centre capacity constraints pushing demand to new locations

AI use is set to require the doubling of hyperscale data centre capacity in the next four years, but while the depth of demand will mean centres will be required in markets around the world, energy infrastructure and grid capacity will mean delivery will be easiest in northern European locations such as Malmo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Oslo, says Savills. The international real estate advisor has benchmarked 68 locations around the world to assess the impact of energy constraints in different global markets, given that power capacity tends to be the major limiting factor in data centre development. With major cities often seeing high demand from competing power needs, it is often smaller cities that will find data centre delivery easiest, especially those which have plentiful renewable energy sources; but “data localisation requirements and an ongoing need for some services to be located close to key markets will continue to drive development even in the most energy-constrained hubs”, comments Paul Tostevin, Head of Savills World Research. He continues, “However, locations where limitations are fewer and time to market is faster are likely to benefit from the current unstoppable need for more capacity, especially as a cloud-based services such as AI have made site-selection more location-agnostic. We’re seeing some trends in the fastest growing markets being close to those which have limited capacity, such as Malaysia, which is boosted by its role in supporting demand from constrained neighbouring Singapore; a pattern which is beginning to emerge elsewhere in southeast Asia.” In the US, access to power and limits on grid capacity has become the major constraint on new data centre development. Rick Drescher, Corporate Managing Director and Lead of Savills Critical Facilities in the US, says, “The rulebook of data centre site selection has been ripped up; it now all comes down to where sufficient power can be accessed. In the US, the biggest markets are Northern Virginia, Chicago, and Dallas, but we’re now seeing significant growth in locations such as San Antonio-Austin, and that’s because power restrictions there are less of a factor.” Scott Newcombe, EMEA Head of Data Centres, adds, “AI is significantly transforming European data centre markets by driving increased demand for processing power and storage capacity. As organisations adopt AI technologies, they require advanced infrastructures to handle vast amounts of data. This surge leads to the expansion of existing data centres and the construction of new ones, fostering innovations in energy efficiency and cooling systems. “Moreover, with stricter regulations on data protection and sustainability, data centre operators in Europe are investing in green technologies to meet compliance requirements and consumer expectations. Overall, AI is shaping a more robust, efficient, and environmentally conscious data centre landscape across EMEA.” For more from Savills, click here.

Tata unveils AI infrastructure with NVIDIA accelerated computing

Tata Communications today announced a transformative upgrade to its AI cloud infrastructure in India, powered by NVIDIA Hopper GPUs. The company says that the strategic collaboration marks a significant milestone in the country’s AI journey, and that it positions Tata Communications as a key player in enabling AI applications across a wide spectrum of industries - including manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and banking and financial services - and equipping them with the computing power needed to handle complex AI workloads. As part of the initiative, Tata Communications will integrate cutting-edge NVIDIA software solutions such as NVIDIA NIM microservices, and the NVIDIA Omniverse and NVIDIA Isaac platforms, into its AI Cloud offerings. These technologies will provide businesses with an extensive suite of tools and services designed for AI-driven simulation, automation and more. At the end of this year, Tata Communications will begin the first phase of its large-scale deployment of Hopper GPUs, establishing itself as one of the largest NVIDIA Hopper GPU cloud-based supercomputers in India. The second phase, planned for 2025, will further expand the infrastructure with Blackwell GPUs. Tata Communications is poised to disrupt the AI landscape with an AI studio, a ground-breaking, all-in-one platform designed to transform how businesses use AI, by offering tools like AI Workbench, Model Garden, Responsible AI and serverless functions. Furthermore, its advanced tools will simplify distributed data management, allowing businesses to efficiently collect and curate data across various enterprise systems and move it to the AI Cloud using Tata Communications' IZO Multi Cloud Connect platform. This approach will ensure cost-effectiveness and scalability for enterprises, while maintaining their existing data structures. Complementing this is Tata Communications' CloudLyte Edge Computing platform, which enables low-latency inferencing, allowing businesses to deploy models at the edge for real-time responses. Together, these innovations empower enterprises to fully harness the power of AI. “AI is expanding the boundaries of innovation and revolutionising business in ways we could never have imagined,” says AS Lakshminarayanan, MD & CEO, Tata Communications. “Therefore, every entity must prioritise AI integration to stay competitive. We are delighted to partner with NVIDIA to build a unique and transformative Cloud Fabric that will empower a generation of Indian innovators and entrepreneurs, fostering a vibrant AI ecosystem and propelling the nation towards a future fuelled by AI.” Providing enterprises with a powerful infrastructure capable of handling complex AI workloads will help drive AI adoption across India. Combining NVIDIA’s AI platform with TATA Communications’ global network, will create a national supercomputing framework, driving innovation and helping elevate India’s role in the global AI player ranks. “Tata Communications’ AI cloud infrastructure, integrating NVIDIA accelerated computing, will support businesses of all sizes - from AI startups to large enterprises - helping drive AI transformation across various sectors of the Indian economy and creating a powerful ecosystem for AI innovation,” adds Jay Puri, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations at NVIDIA. Tata Communications customers will also gain access to the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform on its accelerated infrastructure, which is designed to let users build, customise and run generative and agentic AI applications in production. This includes NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints, which provide customisable reference architectures for use cases like digital human technologies or AI virtual assistants for customer service, multimodal PDF extraction workflows for enterprise data retrieval and container security workflows for cyber security. Enterprises can also create their own AI models using the NVIDIA NeMo end-to-end platform for developing custom generative AI, and run efficient AI inference through NVIDIA’s NIM microservices - both part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise - offering unparalleled flexibility and performance for AI workloads. By integrating NVIDIA technologies, Tata Communications will continue to demonstrate its commitment to building next-generation AI infrastructure and services, positioning the company to lead India’s AI transformation and make AI more accessible across industries. For more from Tata Communications, click here.

Planning consent secured for £750m hyperscale data centre

Legal & General, specialist digital infrastructure investment firm Goldacre, and data centre development partner sineQN, have announced that planning has been approved for a £750m sustainable, urban hyperscale data centre investment located in the London Borough of Newham. The development is expected to contribute £88 million to Newham’s GVA (gross value added), creating over 1,000 skilled jobs during the construction and operation phases, and is targeted to attract 500 high-growth data businesses to the Borough. The consortium brings together their digital infrastructure experience and expertise to this new and independent project. The data centre represents a significant investment and contribution to further regeneration in Newham, where L&G has already provided over £550 million to the development of high quality and multi-sectoral regeneration projects, delivering housing and public realm as well as economic benefits such as job creation. Driven by increased demand from the digitalisation of society, including cloud migration and AI, growth in data storage and processing continues to accelerate. This partnership supports the growth in data capacity in Europe’s largest and tightest market, whilst aiming to deliver critical infrastructure that is both commercially attractive and addresses social and environmental needs. The proposed development will deliver 80 megawatts of IT power by early 2027, and has the flexibility to deliver all workloads, including AI, in a secure, sustainable location just over 500m from the London Internet Exchange (LINX). The data centre has the potential to be a heat source for thousands of homes in Newham and will aim to help the Council fulfil its net zero ambitions. The scheme will also provide significant environmental and public realm improvements along Bidder Street and connecting walkways along the Lower Lea Valley, from Canning Town to Stratford. Matteo Colombo, Managing Director of Digital Infrastructure, Asset Management, Legal & General says, “This data centre signals our continued support for the Borough through the provision of catalytic capital to develop vital assets and boost productivity in this vibrant part of London.” David Bloom, Founder & CEO, Goldacre says, “The planning approval marks a significant milestone, not only for Newham but for London’s broader digital infrastructure. As demand for data capacity continues to grow exponentially, this development reinforces the capital’s position as a global hub for innovation and technology. At Goldacre, we are committed to advancing the future of digital infrastructure, and this project exemplifies our dedication to innovative and forward-thinking solutions that meet the evolving needs of the digital economy. It has been over a decade since we invested in our first data centre, and we have gone on to make a number of successful investments in this space, with Newham as the latest addition. Both the sector and the processes involved have experienced a coming of age, there could not be a better time to invest in data centres."

CMC Networks rolls out platform in Africa and Middle East

CMC Networks, a global Tier 1 service provider, has rolled out its CMC Fusion networking platform across 51 African and 11 Middle Eastern countries. It will enable carriers, service providers and enterprises to provision and manage network services across these regions from anywhere in the world, simplifying business growth across dynamic markets. CMC Fusion is a cloud-based platform that consolidates multiple network services and analytics into a single portal and marketplace, including MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), multi-cloud connect, software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), service monitoring, assurance, security, management, and more. The easy-to-use portal is built on the largest application-aware, AI-enabled and software-defined network (SDN) in Africa. It is aligned with global industry standards to ensure interoperability and provide support with regulatory compliance. “CMC Fusion is transforming what was once a complex, costly and fragmented market into one unified networking ecosystem,” says Marisa Trisolino, CEO at CMC Networks. “The company is developing a platform that is making it easier than ever to do business across Africa and the Middle East.” CMC Fusion enables seamless, consistent performance and application experience for customers connecting across multiple countries and clouds in Africa and the Middle East. It provides a consolidated view of all information and analytics, making it easy for customers to track their orders, tickets, and services. Round-the-clock network monitoring enables fast identification and troubleshooting of any potential problems. Carriers, service providers and enterprises can move with greater agility to connect and capture new growth opportunities across multiple markets. Geoff Dornan, CTO at CMC Networks, adds, “In an increasingly cloud-centric world, CMC Networks is removing the borders and barriers to growth in Africa and the Middle East and innovating to directly address on-the-ground challenges where the company operates. CMC Networks is looking forward to making it even easier for its customers to grow their businesses across these regions.” CMC Cloud is one of the many solutions available through CMC Fusion, delivering high-performance edge computing across Africa. The Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution is designed to bring workloads closer to the end user and improve the performance of applications and services, without the need to invest in physical hardware. CMC Networks has the largest pan-African network servicing 51 out of 54 countries in Africa and 11 countries in the Middle East, plus regional hubs in key interconnect locations across Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. For more from CMC Networks, click here.

atNorth announces new Operations Director for Denmark

atNorth, a Nordic colocation, high-performance computing, and AI service provider, has announced the appointment of Jeff Kjeldsen as Operations Director for Denmark – a pivotal role following the recent announcement of atNorth’s second data centre in Denmark and its largest site to date, DEN02. Jeff has a wealth of technical experience in the data centre industry having previously worked for Meta and Amazon Web Services (AWS). His expertise in waste heat recovery systems, automation technology and large-scale infrastructure operations, coupled with his commitment to team empowerment make him ideally suited to the role. He will be responsible for delivering operational excellence across atNorth’s Danish sites, ensuring the facilities adhere to client requirements and stringent industry standards. The business has a growing presence in Denmark with its DEN01 site due for completion in Q2 2025 and the recently announced mega site, DEN02. “atNorth is delighted to welcome Jeff to the team”, says Erling Guðmundsson, Chief Operations Officer at atNorth. “His significant expertise in data centre operations and collaborative team management make him invaluable as atNorth continues its expansion into Denmark”. Jeff has spent a decade in the data centre industry, most recently as a Facility Technical Manager – Automation & Process at Meta where he led a team of experts specialising in building automation, controls, generators, and process engineering within its data centre facilities. Prior to this he was responsible for data centre operations including supporting the start up of new data centre facilities in Germany for AWS as Head of Data Centre Facilities and Engineering. “I am thrilled to join atNorth as it continues to expand in Denmark and across the Nordics”, says Jeff Kjeldsen. “The data centre industry is flourishing and I am excited to contribute to atNorth’s development and expansion as it continues to scale in a sustainable way”. The news follows a number of other recent strategic appointments including, Anna Kristín Pálsdóttir, Chief Development Officer, Jörgen Larsson, Director of Hyperscale Operations and Taina Ahti-Aalto, Operations Director for Finland. For more from atNorth, click here.

Nasuni integrates Microsoft 365 Copilot

Nasuni, an enterprise data platform for hybrid cloud environments, has announced its latest advancement in data intelligence by further integrating with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Through the Microsoft Graph Connector, Nasuni managed data is now fully accessible and operational with Microsoft Search and Microsoft 365 Copilot, significantly expanding data access for Microsoft's AI services.  AI requires AI-ready infrastructure, and today's legacy data storage infrastructure creates a challenge for forward-thinking enterprises. Legacy hardware-based storage generates silos of data, making it impossible to run AI and analytics against. Organisations, which can have billions of files and petabytes of data, need to break down these silos and consolidate their data into the cloud. The power to unlock this data is incredible, which is why the Nasuni File Data Platform enables this through data consolidation, protection and accessibility for anyone and anything (including AI).  The Graph Connector enables organisations to leverage Nasuni’s managed data repositories to harness the full potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot, aligning AI-powered experiences with specific business needs and workflows. Organisations can use the Graph Connector to leverage Nasuni data with Microsoft 365 semantic index to unlock AI-powered search, enhanced compliance, and advanced analytics through a unified interface.  Key benefits of this integration include:  · Unlocking greater value from data: Customers can now maximise the value of their Nasuni-managed data by making it accessible for personalised experiences via Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Search, enriching user interactions with relevant content.  · AI-powered search and insights: The Graph Connector enables Nasuni-managed files to be indexed into Microsoft's semantic index, which forms a key part of the Microsoft 365 AI infrastructure. This semantic index is utilised by Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Search to provide contextually relevant answers and insights across Microsoft 365 applications.  · A unified data interface: Customers benefit from single-pane-of-glass access to their Microsoft 365 data (including SharePoint and OneDrive) and Nasuni. This unified view allows for efficient searching and interaction with documents across the entire unstructured file stack, inclusive of Nasuni-managed data.  "By enabling Microsoft 365 Copilot through the use of the Microsoft Graph Connector, we're empowering our customers to get even more value out of their Nasuni-managed data," says Jim Liddle, Chief Innovation Officer of Data Intelligence and AI at Nasuni. "This solution integration will make it frictionless to use Microsoft 365 Copilot with Nasuni data in context with Microsoft 365 stored data sets, allowing for more informed decision-making and improved efficiency in our customers' day-to-day operations."  For more from Nasuni, click here.

Telehouse celebrates 35 years of data centre innovation

Global colocation provider, Telehouse, a brand of KDDI, a Japanese telecommunications leader, today celebrates 35 years of providing cutting-edge, customer-focused data centre services in an era of unprecedented digital transformation. From the opening of the first Telehouse data centre in New York in 1989, quickly followed by the launch of Telehouse North in London Docklands, Telehouse has continuously evolved to serve the data and connectivity needs of the world’s most dynamic businesses. Telehouse now has a network of more than 45 connectivity data centres in over 10 countries including its new Telehouse Canada data centres, which officially launched in June this year. This reflects Telehouse’s ongoing global expansion, with new data centres across key regions including Thailand and Canada, further solidifying the company’s presence in Asia and North America. “Telehouse has been at the forefront of data centre evolution over the last 35 years,” says Kenkichi Honda, Telehouse. “From providing data storage needs for our customers when the internet was only just beginning, we have become a global business providing unique, sustainable, purpose-built data centres that are some of the most highly-connected in the world. “At a time of amazing digital transformation, our commitment to putting the customer first remains unchanged. Every connection matters. This customer-first approach will continue as we innovate to meet the connectivity, infrastructure and sustainability requirements of businesses in the age of AI and machine learning.” The Telehouse ecosystem comprises more than 1,000 connectivity partners including leading global internet exchanges and tier-1 carriers, major mobile, content delivery and cloud providers. Telehouse data centres are home to some of the leading internet exchanges in the world. In North America, Telehouse data centres are home to the NYIIX Peering Exchange and exchange switching point of the Toronto Internet Exchange (TorIX). In Europe, the Telehouse London Docklands data centre campus is home to the London Internet Exchange (LINX), and the France Internet Exchange (France-IX) is located in the Telehouse Paris data centres. Finally the Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX), Asia’s largest internet exchanges is located in the Telehouse Hong Kong data centre and Japan Internet Exchange (JPIX), the first commercial Internet Exchange to be launched in Japan, is located in Telehouse Otemachi (Tokyo) and Osaka data centre. All members of the Telehouse ecosystem collaborate to provide services to more than 3,000 enterprise customers in many sectors including major financial services organisations. Telehouse expanded its data centre network across the Americas, Asia and Europe throughout the 1990s and 2000s with the development of the internet, SaaS and mass adoption of cloud services. It is now supporting the next wave of transformation – AI and machine learning, including the rapidly-developing applications in autonomous vehicles, smart manufacturing and smart cities. From the US, Germany, France and the UK to Japan, Thailand, Singapore and the Greater China region, the Telehouse family of data centres is strategically placed around the world to offer businesses secure and flexible colocation and connectivity options and unsurpassed 99.9% uptime. Telehouse provides businesses with access and direct connections to major cloud service providers. This bypasses the public internet, providing more secure, reliable and faster connections to cloud resources. This capability has major advantages for businesses with significant cloud computing needs, reducing the risk of downtime and improving the performance of cloud-based applications and data storage solutions. For more from Telehouse, click here.

New 1MW Coolant Distribution Unit launched

Airedale by Modine, a critical cooling specialist, has announced the launch of a coolant distribution unit (CDU), in response to increasing demand for high performance, high efficiency liquid and hybrid (air and liquid) cooling solutions in the global data centre industry. The Airedale by Modine CDU will be manufactured in the US and Europe and is suitable for both colocation and hyperscale data centre providers who are seeking to manage higher-density IT heat loads. The increasing data processing power of next-generation central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), developed to support complex IT applications like AI, result in higher heat loads that are most efficiently served by liquid cooling solutions. The CDU is the key component of any liquid cooling system, isolating facility water systems from the IT equipment and precisely distributing coolant fluid to where it is needed in the server / rack. Delivering up to 1MW of cooling capacity based on ASHRAE W2 or W3 facility water temperatures, Airedale’s CDU offers the same quality and high energy efficiency associated with other Airedale by Modine cooling solutions. Developed with complete, intelligent cooling systems in mind, the CDU’s integrated controls communicates with the site building management system (BMS) and system controls, for optimal performance and reliability. The ability to network up to eight CDUs makes it a flexible and scalable solution, responsive to a wide range of high-density loads. Manufactured with the highest quality materials and components, with N+1 pump redundancy, the Airedale CDU is engineered to perform in the uptime-dependent world of the hyperscale and colocation global data centre markets. Richard Burcher, Liquid Cooling Product Manager at Airedale by Modine, says, “Our investment in the liquid cooling market strengthens Airedale by Modine’s position in the data centre industry. We are seeing an increasing amount of enquiries for liquid cooling solutions, as providers move to a hybrid cooling approach to manage low to mid-density and high-density heat loads in the same space. “Airedale by Modine is a complete system provider, encompassing air and liquid cooling, as well as control throughout the thermal chain, supported with in-territory aftersales. This expertise in all areas of data centre cooling affords our clients complete life-cycle assurance.” For more from Airedale, click here.

Datadog Monitoring for OCI now widely available

Datadog, a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications and a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork, has announced the general availability of Datadog Monitoring for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which enables Oracle customers to monitor enterprise cloud-native and traditional workloads on OCI with telemetry in context across their infrastructure, applications and services. With this launch, Datadog is helping customers migrate with confidence from on-premises to cloud environments, execute multi-cloud strategies and monitor AI/ML inference workloads. Datadog Monitoring for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure helps customers: - Gain visibility into OCI and hybrid environments: Teams can collect and analyse metrics from their OCI stack by using Datadog's integrations for over 20 major OCI services and more than 750 other technologies. In addition, customers can visualise the performance of OCI cloud services, on-premises servers, VMs, databases, containers and apps in near-real time with customisable, drag-and-drop, and out-of-the-box dashboards and monitors. - Monitor AI/ML inference workloads: Teams can monitor and receive alerts on the usage and performance of GPUs, investigate root causes, monitor operational performance and evaluate the quality, privacy and safety of LLM applications. - Get code-level visibility into applications: Real-time service maps, AI-powered synthetic monitors and alerts on latency, exceptions, code-level errors, log issues and more give teams deeper insight into the health and performance of their applications, including those using Java. “With this announcement, Datadog enables Oracle customers to unify monitoring of OCI, on-premises environments and other clouds in a single pane of glass for all teams,” says Yrieix Garnier, VP of Product at Datadog. “This helps teams migrate to the cloud and execute multi-cloud strategies with confidence, knowing that they can monitor services side-by-side, visualise performance data during all stages of a migration and immediately identify service dependencies.” For more from Datadog, click here.

VIAVI introduces VAMOS automation platform

VIAVI Solutions has introduced the VIAVI Automation Management and Orchestration System (VAMOS), an intelligent automation platform that incorporates AI/ML capabilities to enable wireless and cloud service providers, network equipment manufacturers and their ecosystems to reduce operational expenses and accelerate time-to-market. The complexity of network architectures continues to increase, as operators and equipment manufacturers investigate the next generation of technology, migrate to the cloud, and leverage AI and ML. Continuous Testing (CT) becomes ever more prevalent to provide a unifying perspective on real-world performance. However, labs are confronting the dual challenges of more tests and limited headcount. Automation has become a crucial way for them to manage the complexity, scheduling and manpower demands of CT, allowing technicians to efficiently power through hundreds of test cases, and to focus on higher-order analysis and problem solving. VIAVI has developed VAMOS as part of its NITRO Wireless portfolio to automate test campaigns and their execution in one centralised cloud-based, Lab-as-a-Service platform. Built-in AI and ML capabilities enable test optimisation and faster response times. VAMOS’s customisable workspaces and configurations streamline the testing process across organisations and lab locations. Shared tool testbeds and individual sandboxes accommodate multiple test needs while the platform’s robust analytics and reporting help maximise test resource utilisation and boost test accuracy. “As VIAVI works with leading labs around the globe to integrate wireless, cloud and AI, the need for automation and orchestration has never been clearer,” says Ian Langley, Senior Vice President, Wireless Business Unit, VIAVI. “In initial implementations at major labs, VAMOS has already demonstrated significant reductions in cost per test-hour and increases in hardware utilisation.” In addition to providing a standalone solution to schedule and run test campaigns based on VIAVI’s NITRO Wireless portfolio, VAMOS can be integrated with a third-party automation framework, allowing it to interact with a wider range of products and existing test environments. Connection is available via both software and hardware. VAMOS will be integrated into the VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service for Open RAN (VALOR) for the lab’s on-demand, cloud-based testing. VALOR is designed to manage and support 5G and Open RAN deployments that would benefit from access to tools and expert staff with a minimal ramp-up time. The project is funded by the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund. For more from VIAVI Solutions, click here.