As we move towards 2024, the data center industry faces intense pressure to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities while also reducing energy consumption, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. The proliferation of AI (as Vertiv predicted two years ago) along with the infrastructure and sustainability challenges inherent in AI-capable computing can be felt across the industry and throughout the 2024 data center trends forecast from Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions. 

“AI and its downstream impact on data center densities and power demands have become the dominant storylines in our industry,” said Vertiv CEO Giordano (Gio) Albertazzi. “Finding ways to help customers both support the demand for AI and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is a significant challenge requiring new collaborations between data centers, chip and server manufacturers, and infrastructure providers.”

These are the trends Vertiv’s experts expect to dominate the data center ecosystem in 2024:

AI sets the terms for new builds and retrofits: Surging demand for artificial intelligence across applications is pressuring organizations to make significant changes to their operations. Legacy facilities are ill-equipped to support widespread implementation of the high-density computing required for AI, with many lacking the required infrastructure for liquid cooling. In the coming year, more and more organizations are going to realize half-measures are insufficient and opt instead for new construction – increasingly featuring prefabricated modular solutions that shorten deployment timelines – or large-scale retrofits that fundamentally alter their power and cooling infrastructure. Such significant changes present opportunities to implement more eco-friendly technologies and practices, including liquid cooling for AI servers, applied in concert with air-cooled thermal management to support the entire data center space.

Read more:
https://mb.com.ph/2023/11/24/artificial-intelligence-sustainability-at-forefront-as-industry-turns-attention-to-2024