Today’s rundown:

• FEATURED: AMD says old servers are tanking efficiency

• BIG DEALS/DEVELOPMENTS: $800M coming to Tulsa, Prime announces another billion-dollar build, and AWS gobbles up nuclear dc.

• COOLING, TECH, AND MORE: ZTE’s IceCube, Intels Coral heatsinks, humanoids, and more!

Est. read time: 4mins 27secs

- Featured -

Are dusty servers tanking your power efficiency?

Light Reading recently interviewed Robert Hormuth, AMD's VP of Data Center Solutions, about a major issue facing data centers: millions of outdated servers consuming excessive power.
This overconsumption makes it difficult to integrate AI technologies due to limited power, space, and cooling resources.

Extended replacement cycles

According to Hormuth, replacement cycles now stretch from five to seven years, contrary to the previous three to five years.

We’ve seen that hyperscale cloud providers have been extending server lifespans by trying to improve reliability through design enhancements and optimizing infrastructure via software, instead of hardware.

This trend towards longer refresh cycles is resulting in inefficient power usage. Modern servers with the latest chips perform more efficiently, offering significant power savings.

Better servers = less power

Hormuth illustrated this dynamic by comparing the energy efficiency of a single high-wattage chip against multiple lower-wattage chips.

“You end up spending a lot of power trying to get from chip A to chip B,” he said. “Any copper trace is resistance. The further you go, the more resistance, the harder you have to drive – the more electricity you have to push to get from point A to point B because of that inherent resistance…when you integrate it together, it can use a lot lower power.

Server consolidation can significantly reduce power consumption.

Hormuth cited an example where an AMD customer managed to reduce fifteen servers down to three, freeing enough power to incorporate an AI server.

Baron Fung from Dell’Oro Group also commented on the potential benefits of server consolidation, saying, “The latest servers have more processor cores, memory channels, and capacity, have higher speed interfaces inside and out of the server, etc.,” and added, “As a result, each server can host more users and applications at once.”

The slowing pace of advancements in CPU technology also diminishes the urgency to upgrade servers with each new release, despite the latest CPUs from companies like Intel and AMD offering significant improvements over previous generations.

Now, AMD's push for server consolidation is obviously self-serving due to their interest in selling more of their Epyc chips. And the company probably wouldn’t mind the bump net income dropped 35% to $854 million.

But the point stands, with power efficiency at the forefront of data center operators’ concerns, up to date servers should be a primary focus.

- Deals and Developments -

Watch out Northern VA! $800M data center is coming to Tulsa

The article is paywalled, but check out Alex’s post below.

Prime Announces Another Billion-Dollar Build

Prime Data Centers plans to construct a $1.3 billion data center campus in Caldwell County, near Austin, Texas.

The proposed site for this development is along Farm to Market Road 2720 and aims to offer a comprehensive "turn-key" data center solution, according to the Austin Business Journal.

Details on the project are currently sparse, including the key figures involved in the development. The project is associated with "Project Snow," an unnamed economic development venture approved on January 23, though specifics about this initiative remain undisclosed.

The targeted land for this project covers 206 acres.

More Big Deals

• Mitsubishi announces an $800M Dallas data center partnership. The deal will see the Japanese conglomerate team up with Digital Realty on two under-construction data centers totaling up to 48MW.

• AWS gobbles up nuclear data center. Amazon paid $650 million for the 1200-acre Cumulus Campus developed by Talen Energy near the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station. AWS plans to expand the campus to 960MW.

• Polaris Technology is developing a 200MW facility in Oklahoma. The crypto data center provider aims to spend $100M on the facility dedicated to mining Bitcoin.

- Cooling, Tech and More -

1. Intel Eyes Coral-Shaped Cooling Tech: Intel’s proposed coral-shaped immersion cooling heatsinks will be manufactured through 3D printing and designed to maximize surface area and reduce thermal resistance. Integrated with these heatsinks are 3D vapor chambers, enhancing the cooling capacity of the two-phase immersion system.
Check out the tech and the COOLERCHIPS program here.

2. They’re Calling it the “IceCube”: ZTE, the Chinese-state-controlled telecommunications giant has unveiled the latest volley in cooling tech. The IceCube is a fully-liquid-cooled cabinet that can accommodate up to 40 1U servers through zero-gap deployment. The total power of a single cabinet will reach 100KW.
Check out the full press release.

3. Equinix is bringing xScale to North America: Until now, Equinix has only built its “xScale” hyperscale data centers in Europe and Asia. But with the AI arms race at full bore, the company now seeks to bring that model stateside. First stop: Silicon Valley.
DCF covers the earnings call where Equinix leaders discuss hyperscale strategy.

4. Humanoids are here: With Tesla’s announcement that they’ll be shipping their Optimus robot this year, and BMW partnering with Figure Robotics, it’s clear that the humanoid robots have arrived.
IOTWorld looks at what that means for everyone in this great article.

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