Today’s rundown:

• Size Matters: Uptime says bigger is better for efficiency

• Duke wants to tap backup data center power for grid support

• Deals and Dev: Microsoft is buying tons of carbon capture, Dell and EY partner at the edge, Yondr to add another 48MW in VA

• More to Explore: Exploring nuclear solutions, compute power key to AI control, fighting over nukes and artificial intelligence, and more!

Est. read time: 6mins 04secs

Uptime Institute Says Size Matters for Efficiency

The Uptime Institute's annual Global Data Center Survey provides insights into the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of the data center industry, a measure of facility efficiency calculated as the ratio of total site power to IT power.

GDC Results

Despite advancements, the industry's average PUE has plateaued at around 1.55 to 1.59 since 2020, with the 2023 average at 1.58. This stagnation is partly due to older, less efficient facilities.
The 2023 survey, however, introduces a refined methodology, offering deeper insights into trends and improvements, particularly the impact of facility size on PUE.

Larger data centers, often newer and equipped with cutting-edge technology, show more efficiency with a capacity-weighted PUE of 1.47, compared to the overall average of 1.58. This indicates that size and modernization play critical roles in data center efficiency.
Uptime contends that the modernization of smaller facilities is less likely to yield a return on investment from energy savings.

What’s More

Cloud hyperscalers Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft already claim PUE of 1.2 or lower at some sites. However, their workloads may be provisioned by a colocation partner whose PUE is higher, or cloud workloads may need to be replicated across one or more availability zones.

As campuses continue to reach record size and power consumption levels, scrutiny will only continue to increase.
Legislative measures are beginning to demand lower PUEs, as seen in Germany's new Energy Efficiency Act, which sets forth stringent PUE requirements for data centers in the coming years. (1.5 PUE by 2027 and 1.3 by 2030).

Uptime expects that the shift towards larger, more efficient data centers will lead to a more significant improvement in the industry's overall efficiency than efforts to modernize smaller, older sites.

Duke Energy wants to tap back up power for the grid

Duke Energy is in discussions with data center operators, including Microsoft, to utilize their backup generators for load balancing during peak demand periods.

Here’s the idea:

The agreement would tap into the vast stores of backup power stored by large data centers, predominantly diesel generators, and use them to beef up the grid during hours of peak demand.

Duke would pay operators to provide power from gensets to supply the grid when it is most needed.

In an earnings call on Thursday, Brian Savoy of Duke energy said this: “We’re talking about how we can say yes to serving these large loads while meeting the needs of our customers at large.” “It’s a way to keep a proper level of reserves while we add these large loads to the system.”

Duke Energy

Duke currently operates over 52GW of energy plants - a mix of natural gas, coal, solar, and nuclear - over a wide area in the eastern US, including states like Kentucky, Ohio, and the Carolinas.

The power behemoth announced its projections for $73 billion in capital expenditures over the next five years.

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- Deals and Developments -

Nuclear-Powered Data Center Approved in Eastern VA

Last year IP3 Corporation and Green Energy Partners (GEP) formed a joint venture to establish the Surry Green Energy Center in Surry County, Virginia. Surry County supervisors voted 3-2 to approve rezoning of the site at a meeting on February 8.
GEP plans to build the first-of-its-kind campus on 641 acres adjacent to the 1.6GW Surry Nuclear Power Plant which is operated by Dominion Energy.

As well as hosting 19 data centers, GEP says the Surry Green Energy Center will eventually be used to develop four to six small modular nuclear reactors, although these won’t be online for another 10-12 years.

Read the full write-up on DCD here.

Yondr Adds to its VA Hyperscale Offering

Yondr, which is partly owned by Apollo Global Management, aims to deliver data centers across five continents this year and has projects currently under development in Virginia, London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India.

The company announced it had completed the first phase of the first building in December 2023. The data center’s waterless design promises zero reliance on the local water supply.
The 270-acre, two-building campus is set to deliver 96MW at full build-out.

It was announced last night that Yondr has formed a partnership with Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation for the development of data centers in Japan.

You can find more information in the Yondr press release.

Dell and EY Partner on Industry-Specific Edge Solutions

Ernst and Young and Dell Technologies have initiated a project to create edge computing solutions tailored for specific industries. The collaboration involves the EY Edge Technologies Lab, utilizing EY.ai and Dell NativeEdge platforms.

The pair plan on using their fat wallets to bring AI solutions to sectors like manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare, consumer products, and utilities.

Here’s how it’ll work:
The EY AI Lab (the product of a $1.4 billion commitment to AI) will address challenges in scaling infrastructure, data operations, and security at the network edge, where operational data is often collected.
Then, to enable real-time insights at the edge, EY will test edge use cases on Dell infrastructure, including servers, gateways, and workstations.

- More to Explore -

1. Storing CO2 in Concrete Microsoft has bought over 2700 lbs of CO2 carbon capture from Swiss company, Neustark. The fledgling carbon company will capture the CO2 at source over the next six years, and store it in mineral waste, such as demolition concrete. The carbon is stored for hundreds of thousands of years, and the risk of reversal is "slim to none," the company says.
Here’s the full story from DCD.

2. Nuclear Data Centers… Someday? David Chernoff has written a great piece for Data Center Frontier detailing the state of nuclear power in the data center market. He discusses recent developments, disappointments, and deployments. He’s an OG in the industry, and this is a great read.
Check out David’s piece on DCF right here.

3. Scientists Say Compute Power Key to AI Reg… In a newly released paper by 19 scientists backed by OpenAI, claims that the most effective way to regulate the potentially harmful effects of AI is to limit the computing power that any one company has access to. Another proposed option is the creation of a global registry for tracking the flow of chips destined for AI supercomputers.
You can find a link to the paper here.

4. If you’re interested in data center regulations: Check out this article detailing the latest update to the TIA-942 Data Center Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard. These things take years to update, and the latest revision, “C”, includes changes to the power and mechanical infrastructure, architecture, fire protection, security, and the monitoring of data centers.
Here’s more on that.

5. Is AI the Next Nuclear Weapon? No. And there was a heated debate about the topic at the World AI Cannes Festival last week.
Check out the debate here.

That’s it. Thanks for reading.

Let me know what you think by replying to this email. Also, sharing it with someone who loves data centers helps too.

- Taylor