DATA CENTRES Schneider Electric
33% had created a strategic sustainability plan. Regardless of the current position, business leaders across the sector including investors, C-Level executives and engineers state that sustainability remains right at the top of the business agenda. I believe this year we’ll see many stakeholders accelerate efforts to make their infrastructure and organisations more sustainable.
The use of emerging technologies, coupled with close collaboration between businesses, utilities, local communities and governments across the UK and Ireland alike can help close the sustainability gap further. These might include new initiatives to reuse waste heat from data centres in district heating systems, or building decentralised energy capabilities, such as microgrids, to reduce reliance on an already congested grid.
ENERGY CRISIS: A CATALYST FOR EFFICIENCY The energy crisis has also provided a prominent reminder that businesses and consumers can take nothing for granted. With spiralling energy costs wreaking havoc on business and industry, operational and energy environmental points of differentiation. Power prices, for example, have been a
catalyst for a new-found focus on energy made these ever-more essential criteria in end-user decision-making. I believe that during the year ahead, greater adoption of advanced software tools, including data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) platforms, and greater use of automation will be vital for those seeking to maximise power and cooling such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). Furthermore, for legacy systems, the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), combined with expert modernisation and lifeline for an industry intent on becoming carbon neutral, and where the oldest data centres will prove most challenging.
DIGITISING DATA CENTRE DESIGNS As discussions around digitised experiences such as the Metaverse and NVIDIA’s Omniverse gather pace, the emergence of digital twins has been heavily publicised within the tech sector. More recently, the technology has become a truly viable solution for data centre operators seeking to decarbonise, where scalable industrial software has monitoring capabilities to enable a deeper and more granular understanding of day-to-day operations.
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For those unaware, digital twins are virtual or digital representations of a physical asset, object or manufacturing process. They enable the use of sophisticated modelling, allowing users to examine key areas of design, including the electrical power train, for greater Digitising data centre designs allows components and subsystems to be substituted based on their environmental impact, performance - all prior to deployment in real-world applications. Going forward, I believe that digital twins, virtual reality (VR) and advanced modelling will become more prominent in all areas of the data centre lifecycle.
AI AND MACHINE LEARNING AT THE EDGE The impact of generative AI and applications such as Chat GPT have been hailed as the next disruptive force in data centre design and operations. Yet for those responsible for hybrid IT and distributed edge computing machine learning are unlocking a host of new capabilities to accelerate security, sustainability, and resilience. With more infrastructure moving to the
network edge, software systems have had to quickly evolve, utilising the scale of the cloud and open APIs to offer greater integration, capabilities for potentially thousands of IT sites. I believe this year we’ll see new advancements in data centre software that truly harness the power of AI and machine
learning, offering a new era of energy savings, reduced cost and lower carbon emissions for owners and operators.
COACHING AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES CAN MITIGATE THE TALENT SHORTAGE the industrial sector is the skills gap, where terms of new and existing talent. According to the Uptime Institute: “The most successful employers in the sector take multiple steps to attract and retain top talent, including revisiting advertised job requirements, implementing training and mentoring programs and ensuring adequate diversity efforts.” I believe that a greater focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), in parallel to leadership coaching and mentoring, are some of the primary ways to address the skills gap. In an industry where over 75% of businesses report their workforce is around 10% women or less, it’s clear to see that accelerating career paths for female leaders and those training in STEM subjects will be vital to the industry’s future. Addressing all these challenges will not only
require the use of cutting-edge technologies, but greater collaboration between a range of stakeholders – from vendors to consumers, and utilities to policy makers. Personally, I’m looking forward to working across the ecosystem to contribute and help solve these important issues.
Schneider Electric
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Irish Manufacturing May 2023 17
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