The first data centre conference in the Gulf region takes off in Bahrain 17th July 2023, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain – The Gulf Data Centre Association (GDCA), a trade organisation propelling the growth of the data centre industry across the GCC, has today announced the launch of Touchdown Middle East the region’s first annual conference for the data center industry, which will take place on the 21st and 22nd November 2023. Developed in partnership with Amsterdam-based data center cloud and connectivity conference provider Kickstart Europe, Touchdown Middle East will bring together data center industry leaders, C-level executives, critical decision-makers, trailblazing operators, industry influencers and more from across the Middle East. On Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd November 2023 at Al Dana Hall, Gulf Hotel, Kingdom of Bahrain, Touchdown Middle East 2023 will offer attendees the opportunity to gain region-wide insight into the latest trends, developments, and opportunities in the data center market through keynote speeches from industry experts, panel discussions from leading voices and ample business development opportunities.
Trade mission
Dutch Data Center Association & the team of Kickstart Europe will organize a trade mission to the Gulf region, combining the trip with a visit to the Touchdown Middle East conference. The trade mission will allow European stakeholders to gain insights into the upcoming data center market in the GCC region and meet local players. Individuals from the DDA / Kickstart Europe network can contact Stijn Grove and/or Zoë Derksen for more details on joining the trade mission. Save the Date! Save the date via this link. Tickets for Touchdown Middle East will be available from July 23. Buy your ticket before 21 September and receive $50 USD Early Bird discount off the original price ($150 USD). Exhibitors & Sponsors Touchdown Middle East offers numerous exhibitor and sponsor packages for organizations from across the region and beyond. Interested in becoming a sponsor? Contact Touchdown Marketing & Sponsorship via: info@touchdownme.com Over 1.500 professionals from the global data center, cloud and connectivity industry came together at the Kickstart Europe Conference in Amsterdam. Industry experts from 31 countries (re-)connected and shared the latest insights to kick-off their professional year. Traditionally, visitors got together prior to the conference for the festive welcome evening on Monday night. This year over 750 people(!) attended the evening; a record number! Investments & Trends for digital infrastructure and data centers On Tuesday morning the conference kicked off with market insights from C-level experts from o.a. CBRE, Digital Realty, Equinix, Iron Mountain, EdgeConnex, Eurofiber Cloud Infra, NIBC Bank and NN Group. The panel ‘Investments in Digital Infra discussed developments occurring within the (financial) corporate consumer market. Furthermore, European representatives from key data centers came on stage to discuss the trends they are expecting for the coming year. Sustainability, Perception of data centers and European unison During the afternoon program, it became clear which topics are high on the agenda in the industry. For example, various experts from leading industry organizations talked about how to further increase sustainability by examining the future of water resources and cooling, and how to implement smart energy applications. The topic of data centers supporting the energy grid was also discussed by several different speakers. An interesting take on how data centers can help support the energy grid instead of adding to the load. Many National Trade Associations (NTA’s) came together at Kickstart Europe to discuss their mutual challenges. One of the most heard key-messages at the Kickstart Europe Conference was perception of data centers towards media, politics and society. The framing that data centers have a large impact on climate change has to be debunked in a way that the industry should clearly inform the public opinion about the energy usage and which initiatives are already implemented in order to achieve the global sustainability goals. Expand your knowledge with the European Outlook Report Most of the sessions at Kickstart Europe are recorded and will be published on the website. So keep an eye on our LinkedIn-page so you do not miss any update about the sessions. Do you want to look back on what was discussed? Download the European Outlook Report and expand your knowledge. Save the date! In 2024, Kickstart Europe will be back on February 26 & 27. We would love to see you again at one of the largest events for the data center, cloud and connectivity industry. In 2023, the digital infrastructure industry has to prepare themselves for various complex challenges such as rising inflation rates, energy costs, staff shortages and sustainability while supporting the fast and steady growing need for digital services. Therefore, more than 1000+ industry professionals come together on Tuesday February 21 at the Kickstart Europe Conference 2023 in Amsterdam to gain insights on how to battle these challenges and discuss new opportunities. On February 20 (Welcome Evening) and February 21 (Conference Day), Kickstart Europe offers a familiar conference program for an audience of 1000+ professionals from the data center, fiber, and cloud industry. During this annual strategy and networking event in the Amsterdam RAI, industry experts discuss the latest developments in strategy and investments in digital infrastructure. First speakers announced On February 21, the conference kicks off with a dynamic morning program including discussions and short keynote insights into the data center market and investments in digital infrastructure. EMEA representatives from key players; Eric Boonstra (VP & GM Europe, Iron Mountain), Dick Theunissen (Managing Director EMEA, EdgeConneX) and Eugene Bergen Henegouwen (President EMEA, Equinix) will discuss the latest opportunities and challenges within the data center market. Based on a growth and trend analysis by CBRE Research Director Kevin Restivo. The morning program also focuses on investments in digital infra. In this panel led by NIBC Bank, C-level speakers; Alex Goldblum (CEO, Eurofiber), Anke Schlichting (CTO NIBC Bank), Rob Visser (CTO Nationale Nederlanden) and more to be announced, will discuss investment opportunities in this market. Professor Open Innovation & Business Venturing Paul Iske (also the founder of the ‘Institute for Brilliant Failures & Serious Optimism’) will host the morning program as Chairman of the Day. In the afternoon, there will be plenty of networking opportunities (with the use of an easy speed dating tool) and panel sessions about sustainable developments, investment strategies, and EU market insights. For the full overview of all speakers visit: https://www.kickstartconf.eu/speakers.html Urge for innovative strategies Stijn Grove, initiator of Kickstart Europe, looks forward to the sixth edition of the event. “Last year, our industry had to face a lot of difficulties. With the rising energy costs and inflation rates in mind, the urge to implement sustainable and innovative solutions to decrease these costs is sky-high. At the same time we need to support the transition to the ‘New Economy’, which is sustainable, open, transparent and digital. Data centers are the foundation of making these transitions successful. Therefore, the question arises which solutions and strategies will be suitable for the growth of our industry. We look forward to discussing both at Kickstart Europe." Kickstart Europe 2023 takes place on Monday February 20 (Welcome Evening) and Tuesday February 21 (Conference Day) at RAI Amsterdam. Tickets are available via this link. Managing consumption and carbon footprint driving trends toward regulation, standardisation, and the search for generator alternatives London, UK [Nov. 9, 2022] – Data centres will experience increased regulation and third-party oversight in 2023 as the world continues to grapple with the industry’s rising energy and water consumption against the backdrop of ongoing climate change. The intensified focus on the overall environmental and community impact of the data centre is one of five industry trends for 2023 identified by the global data centre experts at Vertiv (NYSE: VRT), a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions. “The data centre industry is growing rapidly as more and more applications require compute and storage, driving a corresponding rapid increase in energy and water use in data centre facilities. The industry has understood that pursuing energy and water efficiency aggressively is key for future success and survival,” said Giordano Albertazzi, Vertiv Chief Operating Officer and president, Americas. “Increased regulation is inevitable and will lead to important innovations across our industry. The process may not always be easy or linear, but it can be navigated with the help of expert data centre partners and innovative solutions that can anticipate the changes while meeting the always increasing requirements of the data centre applications.” The advances in chip design and manufacturing that limited server power consumption through the first decade and a half of the 2000s reached their limits in recent years, and a spike in the amount of energy servers use has followed. In a recent report, Silicon heatwave: the looming change in data centre climates, the Uptime Institute cited data from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) that showed server power consumption increasing by 266% since 2017. This surge is among various technical and market forces driving the focus on environmental awareness and sustainability in several of the 2023 trends identified by Vertiv’s experts. Those trends are: Data centres face increasing regulation Mounting pressures to meet consumer demand for energy and water are forcing governments at all levels to take a harder look at data centres and their outsized consumption of those resources. Data centres are estimated to be responsible for up to 3% of global electricity consumption today and projected to touch 4% by 2030. The average hyperscale facility consumes 20-50MW annually – theoretically enough electricity to power up to 37,000 homes. Vertiv’s experts expect this to prompt increasing governmental scrutiny in 2023. It’s happening in some places already. Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore have taken steps to control data centre energy use, and data centre water consumption – especially in areas prone to drought – is likely to trigger similar scrutiny. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the water usage effectiveness (WUE) of an average data centre using evaporative cooling systems is 1.8L per kWh. That type of data centre can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day – similar to the capacity used by a city of 30,000-50,000 people. The industry will continue to take steps to self-monitor and moderate – including an increasing preference for environmentally-friendly thermal designs – but 2023 will see increases in regulatory oversight. Hyperscalers and others shop off the rack According to a recent Omdia survey, 99% of enterprise data centre operators say prefabricated, modular data centre designs will be a part of their future data centre strategy. That’s more than a trend; it’s the new normal. In 2023, Vertiv’s experts anticipate a continuing shift in the same direction among hyperscalers as they seek the speed and efficiencies standardisation delivers. This is a newer concept for the world’s leading cloud providers, and they’re turning to colocation providers – who have been standardising for years – to make it happen. Specifically, those cloud providers are outsourcing their new builds to colos to leverage their in-market expertise, proven repeatability, and speed of deployment. In short order, standardisation – ranging from modular components, such as power and cooling modules and skids, to full-fledged prefabricated facilities – will become the default approach not just for the enterprise, but also hyperscale and the edge of the network. Diesel generators see real competition The diesel generator has long been an imperfect but inescapable piece of the data centre ecosystem. It represents stored energy that largely goes unused while still requiring maintenance or fuel replacement after periods of inactivity. Then, when pressed into service, generators produce carbon emissions operators are desperately trying to avoid. Already, some organisations are relying on batteries for longer load support – up to five minutes in some cases – and even designing their data centres with minimal generator capacity. These are transitional steps to minimise the role of the generator as the industry searches for other options – including new battery technologies – for extended backup power. In 2023, Vertiv’s experts anticipate a preferred alternative will emerge – specifically hydrogen fuel cells. These fuel cells will function much like a generator at first, providing momentary load support, and eventually hold promise for sustained or even continuous operation. Higher densities alter thermal strategies After years of relatively static rack densities, data centre operators are increasingly requesting higher-density racks. According to the Uptime Institute’s 2022 Global Data Centre Survey, more than a third of data centre operators say their rack densities have rapidly increased in the past three years. This is especially true among larger enterprise and hyperscale data centres, where nearly half of those operating facilities at 10MW and above reported racks above 20kW and 20% claimed racks higher than 40kW. This is consistent with the maturity of liquid-cooled server technologies and increasing acceptance and adoption of such technologies. The aforementioned increases in server power consumption are happening as the need to add capacity quickly is growing, challenging operators from all sides. This leaves them little choice but to explore the boundaries of existing facilities by adding computing in tight spaces, increasing rack densities, and creating thermal profiles that require liquid cooling. While liquid cooling is not a new technology, the early wave of successful, efficient, problem-free deployments in high-density environments has provided proof of concept that will boost adoption in the coming year. The addition of direct-to-chip cooling to new OCP and Open19 standards will only accelerate this trend. 5G meets the metaverse at the edge Omdia, in its 2022 Mobile Subscription and Revenue Forecast, projects nearly half of all mobile subscriptions – more than 5.8 billion – to be 5G by 2027, pushing computing closer and closer to the user. The metaverse is an application in search of an ultra-dense, low-latency computing network. In 2023, we’ll see these two activities intersect, with metaverse implementations leveraging 5G networks to enable the ultra-low latency features the application demands. Ultimately, this will require higher powered computing in those 5G edge locations, and we’ll see that happening soon – with early forays in 2023 followed by more widespread deployments in the years after. As the edge of the network becomes more sophisticated, so will the infrastructure needed to support it. This will include technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality planning and management systems and increased adoption of lithium-ion UPS systems at the edge – an ongoing trend that saw share increase from 2% of sales in August 2021 to 8% in August 2022, according to IDC. “In recent years, sustainability has been the greatest focus area for the data centre industry, and that aligns with the 2023 emphasis on increased regulation from governments, as well as interest in alternative energy sources,” said Karsten Winther, Vertiv president for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). “As we move forward, data centre owners and operators will need to choose an infrastructure solutions partner that is able to advise them on the best practices and technologies to help them meet their ‘net zero’ goals. With greater innovation and industry transformation, particularly in 5G and the metaverse, 2023 will be an exciting year for our customers and industry.” For more information on 2023 industry trends and Vertiv solutions for data centre and communication networks, visit Vertiv.com. About Vertiv Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) brings together hardware, software, analytics and ongoing services to enable its customers’ vital applications to run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. Vertiv solves the most important challenges facing today’s data centres, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA, Vertiv employs approximately 20,000 people and does business in more than 130 countries. For more information, and for the latest news and content from Vertiv, visit Vertiv.com. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27 of the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act. These statements are only a prediction. Actual events or results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statement set forth herein. Readers are referred to Vertiv’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for a discussion of these and other important risk factors concerning Vertiv and its operations. Vertiv is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Amsterdam, June 9 – Trade association Dutch Data Center Association today published its annual market report “State of the Dutch Data Centers” containing an overview of the Dutch data center market. With the theme ‘Strategy for our Digital Future’, the industry organization outlines a vision for coherent policy. According to the DDA, good policy is necessary to achieve the government’s digital goals and to maintain the Netherlands’ digital leadership position. Especially now, when a future-proof policy that takes into account the current developments in both the sector and society is needed. We are digitizing at a rapid pace. People, companies and governments are using more and more digital services and data. Most of our earning capacity is now digitized. In addition, digitization ensures the development of smart solutions to combat major problems. Digitization is impossible without digital infrastructure. Our robust digital infrastructure (consisting of connectivity, data centers and cloud) has made digitization of the Dutch economy and society possible over the past 30 years. And, as we have experienced in the past two years, also resilient. “The Dutch cabinet policy speaks clear language with terms like digital leadership, digital hub and digital innovation country,” says Stijn Grove, director of the Dutch Data Center Association (DDA). “This calls for a well thought out national strategy based on sufficient knowledge about the digital economy and the importance of digital infrastructure. However, the reality is that the digital infrastructure is increasingly being put under pressure by looking too simply and too unilaterally at only the impact, and not the added value. Uncoordinated policies from the various levels of government mean that the Netherlands is increasingly being passed over as a country of business internationally.” Strategy for our Digital Future The eighth annual market report charts the Dutch data center market through a survey of DDA participants. Among other things, the research presents the expected growth of the sector (regionally, nationally and internationally) and looks ahead to sustainability initiatives that the sector is pursuing. The report also provides perspective on what is needed for coherent data center policy, in good cooperation between government and industry. The report shows that the number of commercial data centers is stabilizing at 185 locations, after several years of decline. However, the consolidation of the number of private data centers continues apace to 6570 locations, down 345 from 2021. Over the next 5 years, the sector can expect a growth of 6.8% CAGR in square meters and 9.4% CAGR in installed electrical capacity. Energy use measured by CBS (December 2021) is 0.39% of total Dutch use. The study shows that by now 90% of all power used by data centers comes from green sources in which the type of greening can be divided into different stages. Because the sector is fully electrified, there are no direct emissions (NEA 2022, lower than 0.0%). In addition, 41% of DDA participants are already reusing their residual heat to heat their own facilities or are connected to a heat network (and more projects are in the pipeline). Data thermal energy can be used beneficially for the energy transition and can keep home heating affordable. The report is freely accessible via: www.dutchdatacenters.nl/en/publications/state-of-the-dutch-data-centers-2022/ Traditionally, DDA publishes the European Outlook Report during the Kickstart Europe Conference. Find the most important insights that were shared during the conference, and predictions about the near future in the field of cloud, data centers, IT and business trends, given by Kickstart partner CBRE and independent research agency Pb7. In addition, the report features expert interviews as well as a calendar for 2022 key events. The report is freely accessible via: https://www.dutchdatacenters.nl/en/publications/european-outlook-report-2022/ |
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