Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to Data Center Digest.
We’re looking at data centers and the people, technologies, and trends that make them run.

Today’s Newsletter:

👮 Network titans are banding together to fight the cybersecurity bad guys
🦁 Synergy says that cloud services just can’t wait to be king
Big Deals: QTS buys more land, Turf Paradise gets redeveloped, and CoreWeave raises big money
Resources: Boosting server efficiency, keeping fibers clean and the best power and cooling stories of the year. 

Est. read time: 5mins, 15secs

- News -

Tech titans band together to battle cyber foes

On the heels of a wave of significant industry cyber attacks, the likes of AT&T, Broadcom, Intel, Juniper, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and others have joined forces under the umbrella of the newly announced Network Resilience Coalition.

The Specifics: The new alliance has been formed under the umbrella of the Center for cybersecurity Policy and Law which is a non-profit working to improve the security of networks, devices and critical infrastructure.

The newly-formed NRC will focus on routers, switches and firewalls that are outdated or need security patching or replacement. They’ll also be developing programs to improve vulnerability management updates and increase visibility into networks.

What’s More: The coalition’s first objective is to compile an investigative report regarding issues around patching and vulnerability management, and network security. The report will offer clear, actionable recommendations for improvements.
Their report will apply to technology providers, technology users, and cyber security policy decision-makers.

Eric Goldstein of the CISA describes their mission this way: “We want to figure out a way to make it easier, frictionless, and scalable to upgrade to supported versions and minimize the prevalence of these sorts of vulnerabilities that we know our adversaries are exploiting at scale.”

Synergy Research: on-prem will account for <30% of the market by 2027

A new report from Synergy Research details that while on-premise data center growth will stay steady, the growth of hyperscale data centers operated by the largest cloud companies will begin to dwarf on-prem within the next five years.

Synergy reports that there are 900 hyperscale data centers worldwide, split evenly between leased and provider-owned.
While many saw this shift coming, the industry largely expected on-prem demand to be more durable than was projected 5 or so years ago.  Synergy’s prediction is particularly bold considering it comes in a year that has shown a significant slowdown this year among the industry’s biggest providers.

The Synergy report also highlights the growing spending on IT hardware. “10 years ago, enterprises were spending over $80 Billion a year on IT hardware and software for their own data centers… and well under $10 billion on cloud infra services.”

Last year cloud services spending reached $227 billion.

AI gets a lift: Digital Realty’s rack density to expand in 28 global cities

Digital Realty’s new service, which will be offering workloads of up to 70 kilowatts per rack, will be released in 28 cities across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific.

A representative from DR says that higher rack densities have become possible due to “innovative air-assisted liquid cooling technologies” Data Center Dynamics clarified this AALC tech refers to rear door heat exchangers on racks.”

These new ultra high density offerings should enable businesses to unlock new possibilities, quickly deploy high-performance infrastructure on a global platform, and achieve the optimal performance necessary in the age of AI.

CTO of Cirrascale, a customer of Digital Realty, describes the new offering this way: “Digital Realty is enabling us to be able to quickly deploy our infrastructure in a dense environment without fear of overheating, throttling, or damage to our high-density servers.”

- Big Deals -

QTS grabs 400 acres in South Carolina

BizJournal reports two entities affiliated with QTS Realty Trust have acquired about 400 acres in York County, SC. At least one of the plots of land will has been associated with the “Project Cobra” development that we covered earlier this month.

Not many details have been announced about the new data center campus other than the size and location.
York County is close to the city of Charlotte, NC, and counts Google, Microsoft, DC Blox, and Dartpoints as close neighbors.

This will be the first SC location for QTS. Read more about the announcement HERE.

CoreWeave raises $2.3 billion in debt from institutional powerhouses

The funding, which comes primarily from Magnetar Capital, Blackstone, and DigitalBridge, continues the trend of institutional financial players trying to cash in on AI hype.

CoreWeave is a former cryptomining company that successfully pivoted to an AI-focused GPU-cloud company just ahead of the generative AI boom of the last 12 months. (We covered in a previous issue the Nvidia investment that acted as a boon for CloudWeave.)

CoreWeave also recently announced a $1.6 billion data center in Plano, TX and according to a managing partner at Magneter Capital, “is well-equipped to meet the world’s increasing need for high performance compute and serve as a value=added provider to each of its customers.”

Here is the full write-up of the Round 2 funding.

Turf Paradise outside Phoenix to be developed as datacenters, industrial

The 243-acre property, a former racetrack located just north of Phoenix in Deer Valley, AZ, is being redeveloped by Califnonia-based CT Realty.
Initial plans call for an industrial and data center park totaling more than 1.6 million square feet.

The project will be called “Winner’s Circle” and at full build out it’s projected to be valued at about $500 million.

CT says this about the project: “We're talking to quite a few Taiwanese and other companies that would hope to locate on the Turf Paradise property to support TSMC."
Phoenix is also the second-largest data center market in the United States, so we've had a considerable amount of interest and inquiries from data center developers and operators.”

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- Taylor