April 21, 2023

Good morning, this is Cold Isle Insights.
This is your 5-minute brief on everything relating to data centers. IT, infrastructure, edge computing, colocation and telecom.

Here’s what we’re looking at today:

• Data centers powered by Hydrogen. Maybe or no? 🏭

• AWS, Microsoft, Google seeing slowing in growth 📉

• Link City: Uptime says execs are looking closer at cloud migration ⛅

• Daily Dall-E 🎨 

Est. read time: 4mins, 15secs

Data centers powered by hydrogen. Real or fake?

Both?

Last July Microsoft successfully tested its 3MW hydrogen alternative solution to their diesel backup generators. Built by Plug Power, the 2, 40ft long hydrogen generators were an important, but small, first step towards hydrogen as a realistic alternative.

So what does the future of hydrogen-powered data centers look like?

Well, hydrogen has been kicked around as an alternative in data centers for years because it’s highly efficient, has no carbon emissions, low-maintenance and can be a modular solution.
The challenge is its an immature technology that has an incredibly high initial cost, a big footprint (needs lots of space!), and regulatory issues exist in many places. It’s also hard to transport.

If you want a great breakdown of the costs from a ton of different angles, check out this article in PowerMag: HERE

And yet, keystone digital infrastructure firms are looking to hydrogen more and more.

Equinix is looking at using hydrogen in its data centers. They’ve launched a project along with CERT to test the efficiency of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. PEM is one of the two most promising hydrogen fuel cells for power generation.
The project is in Singapore, and they plan to use hydrogen for tropical dc solutions first, due to the current limitations of power there.

In January, ECL introduced “the world’s first fully-green, hydrogen-powered, off-grid, data center-as-a-service.” ECL builds midsize data centers that are completely off the power grid and, they claim, 2/3 the cost of ownership of traditional DCs. ECL’s big opponent now is heat - not so good for cryogenic liquid - and probably prohibitive in most of the southern US.
But they’re opening the first one soon, so we’ll see how they do…

Honda is using old automotive fuel cells in their data centers outside LA. Taken from their failed “Clarity” hydrogen car, they’re combining these fuel cells into their backup power system as a proof of concept.

And Amazon plans on using fuel cells in some of its Oregon data centers due to power grid worries. Now they’re not using “green” hydrogen fuel cells, but natural gas instead. This isn’t better than traditional power. But development of the fuel cell technology is an important contribution to the potential of hydrogen.

So what?

Hydrogen is expensive as hell, it’s hard to transport, and we haven’t quite figured out how to make it realistic for large-scale power generation. But it’s got some serious potential to be a game-changing solution over the decades to come, and there are a number of big players pushing the limits of what’s possible with hydrogen right now.

Quick Bites 👄

1. AWS, Microsoft and Google are reporting a slowing in cloud growth. (But they’ll be ok.) Their revenues look like this:

   • Microsoft: $27.1B

   • AWS: $21.4B

   • Google: $7.3B

   All of these were below expectations. Analysts believe the slowing is due to a come-down of the pandemic highs from last year, and none of the providers seemed worried. The goal for these hyperscalers is to achieve a scale that allows them to provide the most competitive costs for users. And they’re happy to sacrifice a little revenue now to get there.

   
   On a different note: Check this out:

2. The EPA is getting tough on cyber water security. Over the past few months, they’ve developed standards and have announced they’ll be enforcing them at a state level.
   Protecting the cybersecurity of water infrastructure has been of particular concern for the fed, and given 60% of the water sector doesn’t have a "cyber” component to its risk management plan, they’re doing something.
   
   The agency will be providing technical assistance and resources to get utilities and states up to speed, and it’s unknown (by me) what the penalties will be for infractions.
   Utility groups are, of course, pushing back.

Link City 🌃

Daily Dall-E 🎨

This is our mascot, Greg.

Short one for you today, please don’t mind.

PS: We’re not making any money on this, and trying to grow our reach. If you find this helpful or interesting, do me a favor and please send it to someone else you think might agree. Thanks!

- Taylor