DATA CENTRES Schneider Electric
How will today’s challenges affect the data centres of the future?
In this opinion article, Mark Yeeles, vice president for Schneider Electric’s of the data centre industry and the key challenges affecting it including the need to both attract and retain talent
D
ata centres are undoubtedly the backbone of our digital lives. Yet as appetites for data, hosted applications
and connectivity accelerate, so with it, do the demands placed on the sector. The industry itself faces a clear and
prominent issue: As digital dependency and consumption proliferate, so does the need for more physical infrastructure. This, in turn, begs new questions; ‘how much growth can the industry expect to see, and how much energy will the data centre of the future consume?’ Without data centres, it’s clear the world
would be a very different place. From general internet usage to streaming and social media, people interact with data centres hundreds of thousands of times per day without knowing. So, with supply a direct result of market demand, one might question if the industry’s sustainability problem is only the responsibility of those who are within it, or also those who are dependent on it? The irony is that it’s both.
16 May 2023 Irish Manufacturing
CLOSING THE SUSTAINABILITY GAP Having recently joined the industry from the that struck me is the general lack of awareness about data centres’ within the digital landscape. By many accounts, data centres are estimated to account for around 1% of global electricity consumption, and according to an article shared by McKinsey, the world’s largest tech organisations allocated $9 billion to build out new capacity in 2022—a number expected to grow by over 4% annually until 2030. Since its inception, the data centre industry has spent much time in isolation, only recently breaking mainstream headlines due to its energy and projected environmental impact. The timing of media interest has coincided with new regulations and legislation including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive both of which are set to change the sector for the better. From an industry standpoint, the gap
between sustainable intent and action has grown considerably. On the one hand, data centre operators have led the charge, providing a template for energy-intensive industries to decarbonise. On the other, analysts have stated the industry isn’t as far down the path to net zero as statements of intent would have us believe. Forrester, for example, found that while 73% of colocation providers ranked sustainability as their #2 business priority, only
www.irish-manufacturing.com
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