How Should the Prominent Data Center Energy Challenges of Today be Addressed?

Story by Wendy Wimmer Schuchart

Key Points:

• As AI workloads exponentially increase the need for speed and CPU time, the resulting energy creates significant heat dispersal. How a data center handles that heat becomes the biggest knot to untangle, impacting everything from energy bills and wear and tear on hardware systems to actual physical space usage within the facility.
• The COOLERCHIPS initiative currently has 19 concurrent projects looking to reduce the total cooling energy of a typical data center to under 5% of what is seen in the industry standard.
• "COOLERCHIPS is a program and portfolio focused on making energy-efficient computing solutions for next-generation high-powered chipsets. The focus of our program is really to make the US lead in critical areas that we feel are important for the total energy landscape. Data centers are one of those, and developing technologies that make us the most energy-efficient at computing is very important for the DOE," says Peter De Bock , program director of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).
• How a facility is cooled has become the biggest inflection point for industry advancement, as it impacts everything from grid and infrastructure to site selection to power density per rack. For many years PUE has been the big conversation starter in sustainability and making sure that we’re being efficient.
• "PUE is the total facility energy divided by the IT equipment energy. That’s the definition of Power Usage Effectiveness. In the denominator, IT equipment energy, people sometimes use power going into the server in the plug. Sometimes, it includes fans that are mounted on the server. So, one idea is that we could subtract the fan energy from the IT equipment, the denominator of the PUE equation," De Bock tells Data Center Knowledge .
• De Bock says that the second consideration in the COOLERCHIPS program is that PUE is sensitive to the environment in which you’re built, as well as the rack density. "So, if you’re building a data center for a very cold environment, you should take advantage of that cold environment, and it’s easier because your PUE will be lower."

Welcome to Data Center Knowledge Discoveries!

You already know that every day at Data Center Knowledge brings advice, trends and strategies for data center professionals on how to design, build, and manage world-class data centers.

That means original reporting from our team of journalists and unique commentary you won’t see anywhere else! But in case you missed them, here are some of our other must-read favorites from this week:

Understanding Data Center Optimization

Story by Chris Tozzi

Key Points:

• After all, optimization can extend to many different areas – from power management and energy sourcing to backup and recovery planning and beyond. By asking the right questions before you decide where and how to optimize different components of your data center, you stand a higher chance of making changes that meaningfully move the needle.
• First and foremost, ask yourself why, exactly, you’re optimizing your data center and what you hope to get out of the initiative. Unless you know specifically what you’re trying to get out of data center optimization, it’s hard to chart a strategy that will yield positive results.
• You must determine whom you’re trying to help via your data center optimization plans. Determining which stakeholders you are trying to serve is critical for making changes aligned with their needs.
• It’s important to ask these key initial questions before you dive into the technical details of an optimization initiative. In the article above, the answers will help you establish a grounded plane for optimizing your data center in a way that delivers real value.

What Does the Future of Quantum Computing Hold?

Story by Berenice Baker

Key Points:

• IBM and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) are to strengthen their research collaboration for the industrialization of quantum technology. According to AIST, this will include Japanese manufacturers providing hardware parts for future quantum computing systems and the development of a supply chain.
• “We also believe that by promoting the use of quantum computing in industry, we can accelerate the growth of the quantum industry in Japan. We will help foster a large community for the development of industry use cases focused on business impact,” the institute said in a press release.
• The partners are also targeting a quantum computer with 10,000 error-corrected qubits by 2029, according to a report by financial news outlet Nikkei .
• Experts generally agree that 10,000 physical qubits could yield more than 100 logical qubits, which is enough to start performing longer, more complex algorithms with a low enough error rate to be useful.

Major Moves Inside the Industry

Story by James Walker

The Data Center Knowledge News Roundup brings you the latest news and developments across the data center industry – from investments and mergers to security threats and industry trends.

Key Points:

• Meta has unveiled plans to develop a hyperscale data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Once complete, the $800 million, 715,000 sq ft campus will be the Facebook owner’s 21st data center in the US and 25th globally. “It provides good access to infrastructure and energy, it has a strong pool of talent, and we have found a great set of community partners that have helped us move this project forward.” the company said this week.
• Elsewhere, Amazon  will partner with the Australian government for a cloud data system to handle top secret information, in a move that’s aimed at improving the nation’s cyber capabilities. 
• In other hyperscale news this week, Google  said its emissions shot up by 48% over five years, as the company has infused artificial intelligence throughout many of its core products – making it harder to meet its goal of eliminating carbon emissions by 2030. 
• And finally, an international team of researchers has set a new world record for the world’s fastest internet speed – at a blistering 402 terabits per second (Tb/s). 
• The team, led by the Photonic Network Laboratory of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan, demonstrated a record-breaking optical transmission bandwidth of 37.6 THz to enable the new data-rate record in a standard commercially available optical fiber. 

Inside AMD's Cyber-Attack Investigation

Story by Ben Wodecki

Key Points:

• IntelBroker posted screenshots of some of the stolen AMD credentials on BreachForums, a platform where users share hacking tools and illicitly obtained information on the dark web.
• IntelBroker has conducted several high-profile hacks in recent weeks. In May, the group stole classified information from European law enforcement Europol and hacked into an isolated test server managed by cloud security firm Zscaler .
• The group previously hacked the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) , the Pentagon’s research arm, stealing military and weapons information, and SQL files. IntelBroker’s cyber-attacks became the subject of a congressional hearing in 2023 after it stole information from health insurance marketplace DC Health Link. 
• AMD had around 450 GB of company data stolen in 2022. The hacking group RansomHouse was behind that attack, claiming at the time that staff members were using simple passwords including “123456.”

Latest Major Tech Layoff Announcements

Original Story by Jessica C. Davis, Updated by Brandon Taylor

Key Points:

• As COVID drove everyone online, tech companies hired like crazy. Now we are hitting the COVID tech bust as tech giants shed jobs by the thousands.
• Updated July 6, 2024 with layoff announcements from UKG , OpenText , and Unacademy .
• Check back regularly for updates to InformationWeek's IT job layoffs tracker.

Chip Watch: Commentary of the Week

Story by Wylie Wong

Key Points:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has partnered with NVIDIA to build what the company describes as a “turnkey” AI private cloud solution that gives enterprises everything they need to quickly and easily deploy generative AI applications.
• “Private cloud AI is ready to run out of the box,” said HPE CTO Fidelma Russo in a recent media briefing. “You plug it in. You connect it to the GreenLake cloud, and three clicks later… your data science and IT operations teams are up and running the Nvidia software stack.”
• Hardware vendors are collaborating with Nvidia on AI data center solutions due to strong customer demand, said Peter Rutten , research vice president within IDC ’s worldwide infrastructure research organization.
• Private Cloud AI, which will be available this fall as a fully managed or self-managed solution, is a fully integrated infrastructure stack that includes HPE ProLiant Servers, HPE GreenLake for File Storage, and Nvidia Spectrum-X Ethernet networking, the company said.

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