DC BLOX expands Birmingham data centre to empower HPC

Author: Isha Jain

DC BLOX, a provider of data centres and fibre network solutions, has announced the completed expansion of its Birmingham, Alabama data centre. This entails a new data hall design, tailored to meet the burgeoning demand for High-Performance Compute (HPC) applications.

The mixed-hall design not only streamlines the allocation of floor space and power between high-density and standard cabinets, but also sets the stage for adaptable configurations catering to specific regional requirements across the company’s data centres. The new data hall design will deliver solutions that empower local businesses, government entities, and academic institutions.

By accommodating both high-density cabinets and standard cabinets within the same space, the new design enables researchers to deploy GPU clusters in close proximity to traditional retail racks, both for convenience and for shorter cabling for data transfer. The infrastructure provides the ability to support up to 2.4MW of 3N/2 distributed redundant power, aligning with the concurrently maintainable Tier III design of standard data halls. The data hall can house up to 240 standard retail cabinets and 36 HPC-capable cabinets, each supporting up to 35kW of power.

The expansion responds to the surging demand for HPC applications driven by several factors, including the availability of cost-effective HPC systems based on commodity hardware, specialised processor accelerators such as GPUs, and the escalating utilisation of AI/ML applications. HPC technology is vital for a wide range of industries, including government, universities, manufacturing, and bio-sciences, yet is often inaccessible due to the lack of data centre infrastructure to support its power and connectivity requirements.

Birmingham’s recent recognition as a federal tech hub by the US Economic Development Administration is derived from its transformation into a centre for technological excellence. DC BLOX’s HPC-capable facility and its interconnected network enable customers like the University of Alabama System to process, store, and transmit timely data to research facilities across the country.