Good morning, this is Cold Isle Insights.
We’re looking at data centers and the people, technologies, and trends that make them run.

Here’s what we’re looking at:

Est. read time: 5mins, 42secs

- Big Deals -

Compass DC gets acquired by Brookfield, a teachers’ penchant fund

Brookfield infrastructure partners, along with the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, are set to acquire the ascending operator, Compass Data Centers.

The deal: Last month it was reported that Brookfield Infrastructure and digital infrastructure asset manager DigitalBridge were the competing bidders for Compass Data Centers. This week Brookfield in partnership with Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors, closed on a deal for Compass for a reported $5-6 billion.

Compass: Launched in 2012, Compass is known for bringing wholesale data center solutions to regional markets that were previously served only by smaller retail colocation firms.

According to Data Center Frontier, in 2015 Compass adapted its design to pursue hyperscale customers, and after a large capital raise in 2019, became a major player distinguished by its innovative design of large data center campuses.

What’s more: The deal is a continuation of a trend we’ve seen accelerating this year: large-scale institutional investors purchasing controlling shares in well-known dc developers and operators.

AirTrunk puts another 70MW in Australia

APAC data center developer AirTrunk has recently begun a major 70MW expansion of its SYD2 campus in Sydney, Australia.

SYD2: This is the company's largest single expansion at any of its data centers, and with the final two phases of construction, the campus's total capacity is set to reach 120MW by 2024.

First launched in March 2021, the 4.2-hectare SYD2 campus, upon full build-out, will feature 29,000 square meters of technical space distributed across 24 data halls. A second phase of the campus was initiated earlier in 2023 without an official announcement.

AirTrunk: A growing APAC giant, is a subsidiary of Macquarie and operates one existing Sydney campus, SYD1. A third Sydney campus, designed to offer 320MW across nine phases and 42 data halls over nine phases, is currently under development.

The company recently completed a 20MW expansion at its MEL1 campus in Melbourne. First launched in 2017, the site is designed to be scalable to 120MW. In addition to these Australian sites, AirTrunk has operations and projects underway in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Japan (two sites), and Johor, Malaysia.

- In the News -

AMD looks to dethrone AI chip king NVIDIA

Last week we talked about NVIDIA’s dominance over the AI chip market and the origins of its AI strategy. This week CEO of AMD, Lisa Su, unveiled their response: the Instinct MI300X, “the most complex thing we’ve ever built.”

The processor: the MI300X is targeted squarely as a competitor to NVIDIA’s new H100 GPU. The processor has 146 billion transistors, up to 192GB of HBM3 memory, a memory bandwidth of 5.2TB/s, and houses 13 chiplets.

(Chiplets are small semiconductor modules that can be arranged into functional components to create a larger, composite chip. AMD has led the way in the development of chiplets architecture as a tool in processor innovation.)

The real selling point is the enormous amount of available memory, according to Su.

Application: Taking direct aim at NVIDIA’s AI-focused, multiple GPU strategy, the goal of the MI300X is to reduce the number of GPUs needed to run large language models. According to, as training model sizes continue to grow, the efficiency of GPU usage will be paramount to computing success.

AMD claims the architecture of the new instinct GPU makes it eight times more powerful than the MI250X used by the world’s fastest computer, Frontier, and 5 times more energy efficient.

What’s more: AMD also introduced their newest processor, Bergamo. Specifically designed for cloud environments, Bergamo comes with 128 cores allowing up to 512 virtual CPUs. Both Bergamo and Instinct will begin sampling in Q3 2023.

Florida man at it again - $100m Cisco scam

Miami man and recently discovered kingpin of counterfeit Cisco networking hardware, has pleaded guilty to defrauding tens of thousands of customers.

The operation: Over the span of a decade, Onur Askoy set up an impressive portfolio of 19 companies across New Jersey and Florida. His business? Making it rain with counterfeit networking devices on a smorgasbord of sketchy Amazon and eBay shops. He successfully peddled tens of thousands of these faux gadgets, proving that even in the internet age, some people still fall for the good old snake oil trick.

The knock-off gear: Schools, hospitals, government agencies, and the US military were all duped by Askoy's convincing array of shiny, new, totally-not-Cisco devices. But the instruments, which came with pirated Cisco software and forged documents, were straight out of China and Hong Kong. The conman is estimated to have lined his pockets with a cool $100 million.

The bust: The Feds crashed Askoy's party in July 2021, sweeping his warehouse and confiscating over $7 million of faux gadgets. A year later, our counterfeit king is cuffed and behind bars. He plead guilty, coughing up $15 million to repay defrauded customers and is now staring down 4-8 years in jail.

- Hot Links 🌭 -

1. How AWS refurbished retired data center equipment. Really cool look inside the AWS lab where retired data center equipment gets a second chance at life. AboutAWS

2 Check out this Japanese-designed maritime city. Nicknamed “Dogen City.” The concept includes underwater, sea-cooled edge data centers

3 Here is Nordlocker’s yearly ransomware report. Cool look at the most targeted industries, states, etc. 

Daily Dall-E

Recently released image of the world’s first-ever data center. Circa 1107 B.C.

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- Taylor