Prasa has started a series of blog posts to examine the role of technology and data centers and how they are helping us in dealing with the pandemic. Previously we discussed the past of data centers with the evolution of data centers and cooling technology in them, the present with the role of data centers in the fight against the pandemic. and how IoT devices are helping contain the virus. In our last post we talked about the future of technology with AI: Battling this Pandemic and Curbing the Next One and in this post we analyze the importance of data centers in the economy post coronavirus.
As the pandemic continues to unfold around the world, the tech world can’t help but wonder how data centers are going to fall back into place in the post-coronavirus economy. The spread of coronavirus has seen a steep spike in internet usage to work from homes, shop, and even stay connected with loved ones as they stay at home, which has added a range of responsibilities to the existing data centers. Here we are discussing some factors that will play vital role in the recovery of the enterprise.
From Socially Distant to Socially Responsible
The Covid experience has definitely made us realize our role in preserving the planet. Everyone in the data center industry needs to work collaboratively to adopt technologies that support sustainable progress. Numerous steps are already being taken to decrease the carbon footprint of the data centers, like completely or partially switching to renewable sources of energy. But, changing the mode of power will just address a part of the problem. Since data centers today consume more than 2% of the global energy; we need to focus on reducing the power consumption per se.
More than 30% of this energy in a data center is utilized by data center cooling technologies. Making cooling solutions green will reduce the overall affinity of power by the data centers and hence it is expected that green data centers and solutions like Liquid Immersion Cooling, which take care of all the power woes in the mission-critical facilities, will gain more demand.
Increased diversification with Edge
Artificial Intelligence has been instrumental in tackling and treating Coronavirus and is deemed even more important in developing a cure for this pandemic, and predicting and containing the next pandemic. The intelligent software making AI and ML possible depends on equally intelligent hardware, which requires real-time processing made possible with 5G and Edge Computing.
Even as countries around the world start to relax the restrictions and lockdowns, people feel unsafe and are unsure about when life will return back to normal. The enterprise data centers need to be well-positioned to help people remain productive, connected, and entertained. Data centers will manage the increasing density from AI and increased usage with diversified infrastructure derived from edge computing.
Infrastructure Woes
A steep decline in enterprise IT spending is projected due to supply and demand disruptions in the short term owing to Covid-19. These enterprises will seek to conserve capital and resort to cloud computing to keep up with their needs for digital services. This will result in an expansion in cloud servers to keep up with the increased demand, which will call for expansion of cloud infrastructure and ultimately more data center infrastructure.
There is a school of thought that even believes lockdowns and other challenges could hamper the construction of new data centers, but realistically it will not be possible. Data has been deemed as the currency of the future and our world is bound to be data-driven in the near future. The data center industry looks likely to stand its ground strong and might witness growth as the lockdown starts to ease and production restarts.
This is the last post of the series; we sincerely hope that you have enjoyed reading it. As we all witness various technologies unfolding and lockdown easing it is very important to stay safe. The lockdown might be easing on us, but coronavirus sure is not!
