Data centers have been around since the 1990s, providing environments for the stable operation of IT equipment, and they become ever more vital to our modern world every year. Smartphones are now widespread and we as individual consumers enjoy all sorts of services via the Internet, from banking through to entertainment such as music, videos, and even comics. The systems that make this happen reside in data centers. In the business world, too, it is gradually becoming the norm to use the cloud for corporate information systems that were previously located in corporate server rooms (on-premises), and the IT infrastructure that supports these cloud services also resides in data centers. The environment surrounding data centers is undergoing transformative change, with four trends currently prevalent.
Trend 1: Hyperscale shift
As cloud services grow and spread rapidly, they are being supported by hyperscale data centers efficiently accommodating massive amounts of IT equipment, more so than conventional data centers. Such hyperscale centers have huge power receiving capacities on the order of several dozen MW, equivalent to over 10,000 regular households, and they also help to reduce environmental loads through high energy efficiency.
Trend 2: Creation of edge computing markets
It is said that computing systems continuously cycle through centralization and decentralization phases, and if the cloud and hyperscale centers represent centralization, edge computing represents decentralization. As IoT, AI, and 5G technologies spread, edge computing—whereby data storage and processing happens close to the edge (users and end devices)—is quietly starting to make inroads into a wide range of industries including healthcare, entertainment, distribution & logistics, manufacturing, and agriculture.
Trend 3: Carbon neutrality
Carbon neutrality in the data center will be achieved through energy-saving measures for using energy more efficiently as well as the shift toward renewable energy with zero carbon emissions. Japan’s Act on the Rational Use of Energy was revised in 2022 to introduce a benchmark system setting a PUE target for the data center industry of 1.4 or lower, and companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime Market are effectively obligated to disclose information on climate change risks based on the TCFD*1 recommendations. As such, carbon neutrality has become a pressing issue in the data center space.
*1: The TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) was established by the G20’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) to study the issue of how companies should disclose climate-related information and how financial institutions should respond.
Trend 4: Automation of operations
On top of hyperscaling and the sheer number of data centers operated for edge computing, the scope of work involved in keeping data centers running is also expanding to include areas such as power-generation/storage equipment to facilitate energy savings and the shift toward renewables as well as the management of renewable energy value (non-fossil fuel certifications etc.). Operational automation is thus crucial to maintaining a high level of quality in data center operations with limited operational resources.
A wide and diverse array of operational tasks are amenable to automation, including inspection rounds performed by robots and drones, AI-driven failure prediction/detection and control of air conditioning, and unmanned facility entry/exit management.
