As the data center industry incorporates new AI tools into operations, operators need to maintain strong human oversight to prevent downtime. AI tools cannot eliminate human error, but they may diminish skill development.
NERC's draft computational load standards could redefine data centers as active grid participants, requiring new modeling, data reporting, operational coordination and disturbance reporting in a bid to protect grid stability.
This report reviews the key deployment considerations to ensure that risks associated with Li-ion battery energy storage in UPS systems are understood and mitigated appropriately.
Data center waste heat does not significantly raise local temperatures, but concerns over the heat island effect demand a robust response that addresses monitoring and mitigation measures.
The US state of Virginia has retained its sales-and-use-tax exemptions for data centers but is imposing a new tax on electricity use: a move that highlights the trade-offs, uncertainties and potential spread of industry-specific taxation.
Access to the latest hardware and rapid speed of deployment make public cloud attractive; yet today most training workloads run on-premises.
For years, the industry has celebrated a reassuring trend: despite a growing number of outages, resiliency has continued to improve. But as AI-driven expansion accelerates, that long-running improvement may be about to stall: or even reverse.
The Irish answer to the grid integration question is stark: all on-site power must be exported to the grid and repurchased at market prices.
A new framework from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) creates a classification system for data center demand response capabilities to help promote grid flexibility and, in turn, support the continued growth of digital infrastructure.
Internal efforts to maximize token use, combined with changes in LLM pricing structures, have rapidly increased enterprise AI spending. Yet there is often limited visibility into whether such expenditures are creating value.
Vendors and consultants expect broad and rapid adoption of AI in data center management, but they may be overestimating operators' appetite for change.
Traditional air gap security presents a barrier to applications requiring live IT-OT telemetry data. Rising interest in real-time monitoring and AI-driven operations requires a rethink of outdated, inflexible cybersecurity approaches.
Operators in most geographies should reconsider hastily-set commitments to reach 24x7 carbon-free energy consumption. Instead, they should adopt more realistic goals.
AI workloads are forcing operators to rethink cooling infrastructure: as power constraints intensify, thermal energy storage is gaining renewed attention as a way to shift cooling demand, reduce peak load and increase usable IT capacity.
The early years of scale DLC deployment came with complexities in system design, coolant chemistry, resiliency design and maintenance practices. Operator experiences suggest consensus is beginning to form, if imperfectly.
Rose Weinschenk
Jay Dietrich
Daniel Bizo
Peter Judge
Douglas Donnellan
Max Smolaks
Andy Lawrence
Dr. Tomas Rahkonen
Dr. Owen Rogers
John O'Brien
Dr. Rand Talib
Jacqueline Davis