This need is compounded by the adoption of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

According to McKinsey, 65% of companies in the world plan to increase their AI investments in the next three years. Similarly, IDC expects global spending on AI software, hardware and services to reach $300 billion by 2026, almost double the investments made in 2023.

In this new environment, the data center is one of the main drivers of AI adoption, but how has AI changed the data center of the future? The answer consists of three parts:

1. High thermal and energy capacities: A survey conducted by the Uptime Institute in 2023 indicated that more than a third of data center operators have reported a rapid increase in rack densities over the past three years.

As rack densities increase, so do cooling needs and energy consumption. Liquid cooling has positioned itself as a roadmap for future data center success.

2. More resilient infrastructure: Many of today’s data centers were not designed to support large-scale AI applications or high-volume cloud workloads. In addition to new constructions that can be designed to the specifications of an AI data center, prefabricated modular data centers are gaining ground thanks to their ease of deploying a robust infrastructure faster and more flexibly, whenever and wherever customers need new capacity.

3. Effective 24×7 support: High reliance on digital transformation-driven IT systems puts data center operators on the spot to deliver 24x7x365 availability and continuity. A proper real-time monitoring and fault response system makes this a reality.

The necessary support for the data center of the future

Regarding the last component, the support needed for the data center of the future is certainly one of the fundamental pillars since, according to the Uptime Institute, the average time of a data center failure is 138 minutes. Each of these minutes represents a monetary and reputational cost for the operator. Having a real-time technical support service is essential to facilitate data center continuity in the age of digital transformation. Aware of this, Vertiv Care was created in 2021, with a Customer Care Center that provides technology support and customer support for data center control.

The service operates as a 24×7 remote technical support line, where Vertiv customers can manage scheduled maintenance routines, corrective maintenance routines, on-time maintenance, emergency response and equipment guarantee monitoring.

Vertiv Care has a direct line in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, as well as coverage in the rest of Latin America. When the customer contacts the hotline either by phone or email, they receive assistance from our operators, which record the request and assign a technician to the case for follow-up with the client in person or remotely until the request is completed.

How does it work?

1.  Vertiv Care receives calls or emails from customers.
2. The Vertiv Care agent requests to complete a support form and contact information.
3. The visit/quotation/technical support that the customer needs is coordinated according to the Service Level Agreement (SLA) established in the customer’s contract. A folio number is provided for tracking each call.
4. Vertiv Care follows up with the technician and notifies the customer of the final resolution of the request.

The data center industry faced an increase in demand during the Covid-19 pandemic, driven by accelerated adoption of cloud services, the need for more robust and secure IT environments, and the transition to remote work models.

Gartner projects that global data center systems spending will grow to US$226 billion in 2022, up 4.7% from a year earlier. Overall, global IT investment will grow by 5.1% in the same year, reaching about US$4.5 trillion.

In Latin America, last year there was an investment of US$6.03 billion in data centers, a figure that is projected to reach US$9.11 billion in 2027, according to Arizton. This is largely due to the growth of fiber connectivity, the expansion of hyperscale operators, and the high demand for data center services by industries.

The market research company adds that Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia and Argentina have led the sector in recent years.

Arizton also highlights that data center operators’ goals in working in facilities with renewable power sources has grown significantly since 2020, “with the procurement of modern infrastructure solutions and renewable energy to power operations”.

In addition to reducing C02 emissions, data centers’ energy efficiency in the post-pandemic world has become a matter of competitiveness in the market. According to Deloitte, affordable costs based on energy savings provide an opportunity to optimize budgets and facilitate the ongoing migration of IT platforms to the public and private cloud in a secure ecosystem, according to the firm.

Transformation for a Post-Pandemic World

The industry is already working towards the energy efficiency of data centers, whose electricity consumption was between 200 and 250 TWh in 2020 (about 1% of what is consumed globally), as indicated by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Some organizations are planning for energy strategies that use a digital solution, which adjust energy consumption with 100% renewable energy and can operate with renewable energy sources 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These hybrid distributed energy systems that can provide both AC and DC power allow for improved efficiencies and may eventually enable data centers to operate carbon-free.

Another technology that will improve efficiency is lithium-ion batteries, used for energy backup. Compared to VRLA batteries, they occupy a smaller space, have a longer lifetime, and can operate at higher temperatures, meaning less energy used on cooling for optimal operation.

Vertiv is innovating to come up with more efficient and effective ways to support critical digital infrastructure. Together with six other organizations partnering with the European Clean Hydrogen Partnership, Vertiv will be involved in the development of a low-carbon fuel cell platform that, based on lithium-ion batteries and Uninterruptible Power Supply systems (UPSs), is intended to provide resilient prime power solutions for the data center environment.

In this scenario of efficiency, four elements play a relevant role. The first is thermal management, which is necessary to keep critical equipment at proper operating temperatures. To accomplish efficiency requirements, operators can opt for solutions such as pumped refrigerant economization systems that provide efficient operations without water, or liquid immersion cooling systems that easily scale and efficiently cool high-density applications, without the need for fans and heat sinks.

The second element is energy management through high efficiency UPS. These units not only allow energy consumption to be reduced, but also contribute to lowering excess energy expenditure and maximizing operating cost savings on the energy bill. Currently, there is a growing trend in terms of technologies that seek high efficiency. Modern double-conversion UPS systems operate with a maximum energy efficiency of 97%, while previous systems reached levels of 93%. This implies a reduction of more than 50% in kilowatt losses and a saving of more than US$144,000 in energy costs over 5 years, according to Vertiv estimates.

The efficiency of UPS systems also depends on the third factor: real-time monitoring. Remote monitoring systems and services add efficiency by controlling equipment performance 24/7, providing visibility into critical systems, and allowing early detection and rapid reaction to anomalies. In addition, it makes remote management and maintenance of the equipment possible.

Maintenance is the fourth element in the search for efficiency. Regular preventive maintenance routines ensure that the infrastructure remains highly available. Vertiv studies have found that UPS units that receive two preventive maintenance services per year have, on average, a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 23 times greater than equipment that has not received service in the year. Maintenance routines may not only reduce outages in data centers, but also make their performance and energy consumption more efficient.

At Vertiv we are innovating solutions in support of new data center trends, including those that provide services for the cloud, preserve availability, and improve energy efficiency.

Albertazzi has been with the company for 24 years, the last six leading Vertiv in EMEA.  In 2021 EMEA delivered organic sales growth over 18%, and improved adjusted operating profit margin by over 700 basis points.

“Giordano is the right person to lead our America’s business and drive rapid execution on the actions we are taking to address current environment challenges. In EMEA, Giordano has demonstrated his ability to drive top line and bottom line growth through transformational efforts ranging from systems implementations to go to market initiatives. He has accomplished the results by integrating cross functional teams and instilling discipline and agility that span how we operate internally and externally. We are confident that his leadership of the Americas will deliver similar success in the region,” said Rob Johnson, Vertiv CEO. “Giordano and Karsten have established outstanding leadership and vision during their careers with Vertiv, and I have complete confidence in their abilities in these new roles.”

Albertazzi and Winther have worked together for four years, driving meaningful results while building a successful culture based on accountability and speed. In his new position, Winther’s strong leadership qualities will allow him to continue the high levels of success in EMEA.

With this announcement, Albertazzi replaces John Hewitt, who is leaving Vertiv to pursue other opportunities.

This announcement follows the company’s recent appointments of Li Ning as Chairman of Greater China and Edward Cui as President, North Asia.

About a third (34%) of those surveyed are either planning or in the midst of significant edge deployments. A quarter already have deployed new, purpose-built edge sites, and 41% are operating legacy edge sites. All the activity at the edge is striking, but survey participants also anticipate a 150% increase in core sites and increased activity in the cloud. According to the survey, the percentage of IT resources deployed in the public cloud is expected to grow from 19% currently to 25% by 2026. The demand for computing resources is skyrocketing across today’s networks.

“The next five years will reshape the data center landscape, shifting more and more computing to the edge while buttressing the enterprise facilities at the core of modern hybrid networks,” said Martin Olsen, global vice president for edge strategy and transformation for Vertiv. “This survey makes clear the urgent demand for computing closer to the end user. The future of computing is about speed and latency, and the only way to meet the need is to build out the edge of the network.”

The survey results arrive on the heels of the release late last year of Edge Archetypes 2.0: Deployment-Ready Edge Infrastructure Models. That report furthered Vertiv’s research into the edge of the network and identified four edge infrastructure models that enable a more intelligent, semi-standardized approach to edge infrastructure deployment. The survey results are consistent with the premise of Edge Archetypes 2.0 – that massive growth at the edge necessitates a more standardized approach to edge architecture.

The survey also revealed the changing profile of the modern edge site. Twenty-nine percent of sites feature between 5 and 20 racks, and 13% have more than 20 racks. More racks mean more power, and the survey results reflect that: 28% say their sites require between 21 and 200 kW, and 14% report power demands in excess of 200 kW. The days of single racks tucked away in rudimentary IT closets are over.

Other significant findings from the survey included:

• Sustainability is playing a major role in new and planned edge deployments. More than three-quarters of sites (77%) are using or planning to use energy-efficient UPS systems. In addition, 40% are planning to use renewable energy; 31% water-efficient cooling; 29% dynamic grid support technologies; and 19% refrigerants with a low global warming potential (GWP) (https://bit.ly/3sgYQ7S).
• While security and availability were top priorities of participants deploying edge sites, the survey exposed some current design and operating practices that could reduce edge computing site’s ability to achieve these objectives as the number of sites expands.

Vertiv surveyed 156 industry professionals with insight into their company’s edge computing plans. Complete survey results are available in the report, What’s Your Edge? (https://bit.ly/36CGO7y)

After the pandemic induced a paradigm shift and changed nearly all aspects of daily life, the data center industry spent the better part of the last two years trying to support IT systems and help businesses meet the unprecedented demand for remote work, e-commerce, and other essential technology. Surprisingly, during this time the pandemic also shined a light on additional issues of business continuity, particularly regarding the environment and climate crisis. As the situation grows in urgency, Vertiv’s experts predict that many organizations will make data center sustainability a top priority in 2022. But industry leaders will need to bring new perspectives and ideas if they wish to bridge the gap between accelerated digital demands and mitigating their environmental impact.

We’ve already seen the industry, particularly the major hyperscalers and cloud providers, respond to these types of data center environmental sustainability concerns with ambitious water neutral and zero carbon initiatives. Google announced its goal of employing only carbon-free energy sources by 2030, while Microsoft set an ambitious goal to be carbon negative and water positive by 2030. Vertiv expects many more organizations to utilize digital solutions that match energy use with 100% renewable energy and ultimately operate solely on sustainable energy. Hybrid distributed energy systems can provide both AC and DC power, which adds options to improve efficiencies and eventually allows data centers to operate carbon-free.

These sustainability initiatives will undoubtedly contribute to lessening the long-term carbon footprint of these organizations, but data center and telecommunications operators will also need to deal with some of the climate dangers currently wreaking havoc and dominating news cycles. For example, the United States experienced its hottest summer on record, and in the first nine months of 2021 alone, it experienced 18 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events. According to an Uptime Institute report from March 2021, three in five respondents believe there will be more IT service outages as a direct result of the impact of climate change, and nearly 90% think climate change will drive up the cost of data center infrastructure and operations over the next 10 years. Therefore, extreme weather events related to climate change will likely influence decisions around where and how to build new data centers and telecommunications networks for years to come.

Current Setbacks for Meeting Sustainability Goals

There is still much work to be done when it comes to how organizations track their sustainability efforts. According to the Uptime Institute’s 11^th annual Global Data Center Survey, only about half of data center managers track water usage at any level, and only a third monitor the impact of carbon or e-waste.

One thing is clear: This is about more than energy efficiency. In 2021, the average annualized power usage effectiveness (PUE), which is the main measure of data center efficiency, is at 1.57 compared to 1.59 in 2020, an indication that overall efficiency levels have plateaued. This almost certainly is true in legacy data centers. The Uptime Institute’s report presents the same conclusion, stating “Even as a growing number of new builds sport design PUE of 1.3 or better, it is not economically or technically feasible for many operators to perform the major overhauls needed for better efficiency in many older facilities. Further improvements will require significant change.”

The survey also concludes that organizations will need to widen the scope of the metrics they track if they wish to benchmark their sustainability progress more accurately. This includes measuring and tracking server utilization, water usage, IT or data center carbon emissions, and e-waste or equipment life cycle.

Technologies Driving Change in 2022

If organizations wish to have more sustainable, resilient, and reliable outcomes, experts expect the following technologies to take center stage: fuel cells, renewable assets, and long-duration energy storage systems, including battery energy storage systems (BESS) and lithium-ion batteries.

A major expansion of the lithium-ion recycling infrastructure in North America is finally on the horizon, as multiple companies have secured major public and private funding in the market. This industry breakthrough will eliminate one of the last remaining barriers to widespread adoption of lithium-ion batteries. Once operations begin, the hope is these recycling companies will be able to contribute to an organization’s sustainability goals by diverting lithium-ion batteries away from landfills.

Fuel cells and renewable energy assets have the potential to free the data center operator from utility capacity bottlenecks and restrictions. In the race to zero carbon, these assets can be paired with the right energy storage to provide longer duration, cheap, clean, and sustainable power.

And the race to zero won’t just include carbon. Organizations trying to reduce their water usage effectiveness (WUE) can rely on thermal systems that use zero water, particularly in drought-afflicted areas. Additionally, experts expect to see refrigerants with high global warming potential (GWP) phased out and replaced with new equipment using low-GWP refrigerants through 2030.

One of the final hurdles to operating a sustainable data center will actually go beyond technology by requiring data center operators, infrastructure providers, and city planners to work together to make the data center central to a community’s infrastructure. On-site renewables and energy storage for the data center could tap into the wider local power grid to stabilize the grid and provide clean power to the local community. Waste heat from the data center, which is largely lost to the air, could be used to heat nearby boilers and facilities, reducing their energy needs. For this to happen, it would require multiple stakeholders across industries to come together for the common good.

All of these climate and sustainability factors will influence design and also extend beyond the data center to other digital infrastructure like telecom networks that must be everywhere. Telecom decision makers have to consider the climate crisis when designing and building their network infrastructure. Experts also expect these decision makers to consider a number of site selection factors when planning new infrastructure builds, including the reliability and affordability of the grid; regional temperatures; availability of water, as well as renewable and locally generated sustainable energy; and regulations that ration utility power and limit the amount of power afforded to data centers. While there are no easy answers to questions related to climate change and sustainability, Vertiv remains committed to focusing on technologies that support sustainable data center and telecommunication infrastructure, as well as working closely with industry leaders and customers to address issues of the climate crisis with more purpose.

“We are pleased to officially welcome the E&I team to Vertiv,” said Rob Johnson, Vertiv’s Chief Executive Officer. “Throughout this process, we’ve quickly reaffirmed that the impressive E&I team is rich in talent and strong in capabilities. This combination is a real-world example of two companies coming together to powerfully amplify their collective ability to create value for customers, employees and shareholders.”

Philip O’Doherty, founder of E&I, who will remain with Vertiv said, “This is a terrific opportunity for E&I’s customers and employees. Combining two highly complementary and already-accomplished businesses to establish one respected, results-oriented global organization that can provide critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions in countries around the world didn’t seem possible when we founded E&I 35 years ago. However today, by officially bringing Vertiv and E&I together, it’s now a reality.”

Massive digitization turned data centers into mission-critical facilities and unleashed ambitious programs for their expansion to meet the expected increase in demand. The change prompts data centers to rethink the way they operate and respond to user demands to offer greater efficiency and sustainability.

In 2019, Gartner predicted that 80% of traditional data centers would cease to exist by 2025. However, a year later, the Covid-19 pandemic – the first pandemic of the digital age – forced a massive digitization that, on the contrary, turned data centers into mission-critical facilities. The change prompts data centers to rethink the way they operate and respond to user demands to offer greater efficiency and sustainability. Vertiv, as an enabler of business continuity and essential service solutions, is up to the challenge to guide customers through this robust market transition.

Because the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic in early 2020, public health authorities around the world quickly began to implement quarantines and other measures that forced companies to establish policies to work from home and led consumers to do their banking, educational training, shopping, medical consultations and other essential services digitally. The result was increased awareness of the critical importance of data centers in the processing of said connections and the declaration of data center personnel, equipment manufacturers and service providers as essential workers, by many governments.

These market trends continue into 2021 and take data centers in new directions. Many of the construction plans for these centers that were suspended last year are being re-established, and existing facilities are rapidly adapting to changing market realities. Studying Gartner Released October 2020 notes that 85% of infrastructure strategies will integrate on-premises, co-location, cloud and edge delivery options by 2025, up from just 2020% in 20, creating new challenges and opportunities. Participants in a recent webinar from the Uptime Institute they mentioned that Data center operators plan to increase their physical redundancies, not only to protect themselves from future pandemics, but also from potential outages.

These threats include those related to climate change; for this reason, data centers are increasingly focusing on sustainability initiatives. Data centers account for almost 40% of total electricity consumption globally and the transition from 4G to 5G technology is expected to increase that figure by up to 4 times. Data centers are addressing these concerns by implementing sustainability programs that seek more responsible use of water and energy resources. Vertiv has delivered cooling solutions that reduced energy consumption in customer data centers by up to 60%, compared to operating traditional solutions.

Data reliability and security continue to be the fundamental goals. Data centers – which are now processing more data than ever before in a world with greater digital dependence, predicted to continue in a post-pandemic environment – are also investing in creating greater efficiencies to deliver speed improvements, reduce latency, minimize costly downtime and offer increased security. With data center services unprecedentedly close to end users, operators are looking for new ways to deliver more positive user experiences.

As more of our personal transactions and everyday activities are moving into the digital space, data centers are helping to maintain a connected world. These facilitate business continuity and make the impact of pandemic restrictions less difficult for end users. Life has changed as a result of the health crisis; Data centers have taken on the challenges of this ‘new normal’ and are preparing for what could be the next. At Vertiv, we have a long history of supporting mission-critical applications. Because this year we commemorate Data Center Day, we reiterate our commitment to offer innovative solutions that support this never-before-seen market transformation process, both in Latin America and around the world.