The cost of low-carbon green hydrogen will be prohibitive for primary power for many years – but some operators may adopt high-carbon (polluting) gray hydrogen ahead of transitioning to green hydrogen
Data centers are being included in national development plans as a source of economic growth. While this will ease operators’ access to land and power, it will also lead to more scrutiny from government and regulation.
The data center industry’s growth projections can be met by combining energy supply growth and demand reduction. Highly utilized IT infrastructure and efficient software can mitigate demand growth while delivering needed IT capacity.
If adopted, the UNEP U4E server and storage product technical specifications may create a confusing and counter-productive regulatory structure. The current proposals are as likely to limit as improve data center operations' efficiency
This summary of the 2025 predictions highlights the growing concerns and opportunities around AI for data centers.
Uptime Intelligence looks beyond the more obvious trends of 2025 and identifies examines some of the latest developments and challenges shaping the data center industry.
As AI supercharges the growth in data center energy demands, new developments are likely to be increasingly politicized. Central governments may support their expansion, but opposition from local authorities and environmentalists will grow.
Power grids are under stress, struggling to meet future demand and increasingly prone to outages. More utilities will expect data centers to contribute power — and be more flexible in their use of power.
Hydrogen from renewable sources is in short supply. While future plentiful supplies are planned, currently only a very small number of data centers are using hydrogen for standby power.
The UNEP U4E initiative has proposed guidelines for data center design and operation and server and storage product efficiency requirements. These have far-reaching implications for data center operations in developing countries.
Many organizations still do not tap into the potential power efficiency gains hidden in servers. Without operational focus on extracting those, future server platforms may bring marginal, if any, energy performance improvements.
The acceleration of data center energy consumption growth projections appears to threaten sustainability objectives. Instead, it demands a reinvigoration of efforts to improve the energy efficiency of the IT infrastructure through better system manag...
Raising supply air temperature is drawing interest from data center providers and regulators in some countries. While saving energy, it may also reduce resiliency. This report quantifies energy impacts to clarify when it can be beneficial.
Historically, data center waste heat recovery has been promoted with a focus on the benefits for the heat off-taker. And yet, the overall winner in most situations is the data center operator — even if they are not paid for heat.
Data center operators building new systems can choose from nine categories of cooling technology. Innovative cooling equipment has minimized energy and water use and the average PUE for air-cooled and water-cooled systems.
Peter Judge
Jay Dietrich
Douglas Donnellan
Andy Lawrence
Daniel Bizo
Max Smolaks
Dr. Owen Rogers
Dr. Tomas Rahkonen