Too hot to handle? Operators to struggle with new chips

Standard IT hardware was a boon for data centers: for almost two decades, mainstream servers have had relatively constant power and cooling requirements. This technical stability moored the planning and design of facilities (for both new builds and retrofits) and has helped attract investment in data center capacity and technical innovation. Furthermore, many organizations are operating data centers near or beyond their design lifespan because, at least in part, they have been able to accommodate several IT refreshes without major facility upgrades.

This stability has helped data center designers and planners. Data center developers could confidently plan for design power averaging between 4 kilowatts (kW) and 6 kW per rack, while (in specifying thermal management criteria) following US industry body ASHRAE’s climatic guidelines. This maturity and consistency in data center power density and cooling standards has, of course, been dependent on stable, predictable power consumption by processors and other server components.