What is the future of the data center? There are some interesting possibilities.

As of January 2022, there are around 2,750 data centers in the United States alone. By far the most out of any country according to data compiled by Statista. Even China is a distant fourth with 447 known data centers. Germany is second with 484 and the UK is third with 458 sites.

While the actual number of data centers is difficult to know, we all can agree that these facilities have become incredibly important in today’s world. Businesses from all over the world rely on data centers for their business operations, and end users also need data centers for their communication, streaming services, photos, etc.

It is a no-brainer that the importance of data centers will only continue to grow. The number of such facilities will also rise on a constant basis for the next few years, and as digital services grow and their usage expands, data centers will have to adapt. The industry is already working on a lot of new technologies and ideas for the data center of the future. Let’s explore some of them.

Location, location, location

Location matters for all real estate, and it’s no different for data centers. The closer they are to the users, the better. With that said, we can’t just build data centers in every neighborhood. Or can we? There are a lot of ideas about the future locations of data centers. Some are expected, some are very unusual. The future of the data center will mean building such facilities everywhere, sometimes without even realizing that you’re right next to it. For example…

Mixed use buildings

Mixed used buildings are everywhere these days, but we usually consider them as a combination of a few floors for offices, a mall and/or a few levels for residential apartments. What if there are also a few floors for servers? Or maybe even the entire half of a big, mall-like building?

There are already such concepts. The Scott Brownrigg architect studio has made a concept for a big mixed used building. It features four floors and, on the outside, it looks like your typical huge mall, but one half of the building is entirelypurposed for a data center.

The other half houses offices, retail, parking, and even indoor agriculture and a microbrewery. Such concepts can be a solution for big cities where there’s a short supply of land available. It also allows for some interesting approaches like using the heat from the servers for the rest of the building, etc. The concept allows for placing data centers in all type of mixed buildings, including airport terminals, residential, etc.

Going far away

Another approach takes us the complete opposite way. Instead of bringing the data center as close to the city as possible, this idea takes it far, far away. Not exactly into another galaxy, but out in the sea. Arup Engineering Architecture for example envisions using old oil rigs for data centers.

The architecture company says that the UK alone has about 500 oil rigs in the North Sea. Decommissioning them will cost a whopping 51 billion GBP. A lot of this money can be saved if these rigs are repurposed. For example – for data centers. This will require rebuilding and reconfiguring a lot of their structures, but it will be cheaper than a full decommission. And it is possible to make it with a scalable approach so that expenses are spread in time and commercially viable.

Subsea alternatives

Submerging data centers in deep water is also a hot topic in the field. This will make their cooling easier, increase security, but it is also a difficult and expensive task. Current projects usually choose shallow coastal waters with a maximum depth of about 120m.

A new company called Subsea Cloud has much braver goals. It wants to place data centers at depth of 3,000m below sea level. The company claims it has successfully pressure tested its UDCP (underwater data center pod). Unsurprisingly, the pod is liquid-cooled.

Subsea Cloud says to DataCenterDynamics that each pod can hold up to 800 servers. It also claims it has a “far more simple and proven” design compared to other similar projects, including Microsoft’s own underwater data centers. Whether or not this is true, we can’t know without seeing the pods in action. Currently, there’s only one prototype for testing, but it shows that underwater data centers will  become a thing.

Now, there’s also a bit of concern that if we simply plop tens of thousands of servers under the water, that their heat might mess up the local ecosystem. Sub Sea claims that this won’t be the case and instead, ten such pods will offset more than 7,683 tons of CO2 compared to an equivalent land-based data center.

Size will matter

The bigger the data center, the better. Right? Not quite. Yes, massive facilities are certainly drawing a lot of attention and hyperscale data centers are going to be a big topic. On the other hand, smaller projects will also have a lot of interest to deal with. Smaller data centers for the edge have a big potential. Then there’s modular data centers which will bring together the best of both worlds.

Going hyperscale

Hyperscale data centers are going to be one of the top topics in the industry. Big facilities allow for more services, including colocation, and even the creation of smaller colocated data centers within the same facility. The massive footprint will lower costs overall as more users will share them.

There are a lot of projects for hyperscale data centers all over the world. One of the most recent one announced is in the Philippines. It will use 72MW of energy and 100% of it will be green. The MNL1 will cover 43,000 square meters and it will be built across 12 four-story buildings and will open this year. Hyperscale data centers allow such massive projects to employ additional infrastructure and investments like green energy which would not be feasible for smaller facilities.

Going Modular

On the other hand, some projects just don’t need such massive data centers and investments. As such, alternative, cheaper solutions will be better. Enter the modular data center. This approach allows for the fast and cheaper creation of data centers as needed. It features prefabricated infrastructure and the use of standardized modules, and thanks to this, it’s possible to quickly add additional modules, increase, and adapt the data center accordingly.

It’s possible to use the modular data center approach for facilities of all sizes. With that said, small to medium size data centers seem the natural fit as it will lower costs and make it more affordable for more companies. Large and hyperscale data centers on the other hand often mandate the need for specific custom solutions. Meanwhile, most small and medium companies will have plenty of benefits with a modular solution.

AI will be much, much needed

Artificial intelligence is also going to be an inseparable part of the data center of the future. AI will play a vital role in many data center activities, and if done right, AI will be the reason why many of the advanced data centers solutions are actually viable. For example, the management of deep-water pods. AI will have a lot of important responsibilities in the data center:

For automation

Automated analytics, setting configurations, predictive maintenance and more. These actions will be routine work for data center AI. Thanks to machine learning, smart algorithms will be able to monitor and control data centers in real time and make appropriate decisions to ensure service availability and quality.

There are already a lot of projects in the area, and it’s only going to get better and become more advanced in the future.

For security

AI already brings great results in data center security, and it’s only just beginning to hone its skills. Pillsbury for example predicts that AI spending for cybersecurity will have a compound annual growth rate of 24% through 2027. By then the market value will reach $46 billion.

There are some specific areas which are shaping up as top priorities. One of them is zero-day malware analysis and discoveries. AI will also be capable of real-time monitoring behavior analysis of software. For example, if an app starts encrypting files or taking steps to hide its behavior, the AI will be able to detect this and act appropriately.

With a similar approach it can also make sure to then look for similar weaknesses in other servers in the data center. It can then flag them and activate additional security features to protect them from the attack. In an ideal world, it will also be able to code the needed fix and apply it across the data center servers.

Metaverse-ready

The metaverse is the new buzzword in the IT world. Currently it seems mostly like something distant and too obscure. Like even the people who introduced the concept aren’t truly sure what it really means.

The data center of the future will have to be ready for the metaverse whatever it may be. A lot of it is already clear. The metaverse will bring a substantial increase in data generation, transfer, calculation, and it will be a case of a rapid increase in the usage of very different data all at once. If it happens as expected, a lot of companies will also have to transform their online presence and accommodate for the new virtual, metaversed reality.

As such the data centers will have to be ready for this. They must be able to handle the increased usage, to be able to easily adapt to the big spikes in usage at random times. And they will also have to be ready to welcome the expected increase in colocation requests as the metaverse will challenge the regular network infrastructure most companies will have.

The future of the data center will  bring many changes. There are many possibilities ahead which will spur the creation of new businesses, services and features. The future of the data center looks bright, and it is definitely going to be a very interesting journey.

Another related article on similar topic, could be this one. Check it out:

Cloud security in 2022 – a hot topic with a lot of variables