Data Center Frontier

Introducing the 2025 #DCFtrends Advisory Board—a powerhouse group of industry leaders shaping the future of data centers! 🏢 🌐🔌 This expert committee spans all aspects of the industry—investment, planning, development, operations, analysis, and marketing—shaping the conference’s tracks, topics, and speakers for a one-of-a-kind experience. 👉 Meet the Board: https://bit.ly/41GrHUu #DataCenterFrontier #DataCenterAlley #DataCenter #Energy #Cloud #DigitalInfrastructure #AI

Executive Roundtable: Data Center Site Selection and Market Evolution in a Constrained Environment For the third installment of our Executive Roundtable for the First Quarter of 2025, we asked our panel of seasoned industry experts about how the dynamics of data center site selection have never been more complex—or more critical to long-term success. In an industry where speed to market is paramount, operators must now navigate an increasingly constrained landscape in the age of AI, ultra cloud and hyperscale expansion, marked by fierce competition for land, tightening power availability, and evolving local regulations. And so we asked our distinguished executive panel for the First Quarter of 2025, with grid capacity constraints, zoning complexities, and heightened competition shaping development decisions, how are companies refining their site selection strategies in Q1 2025 to balance speed to market, scalability, and sustainability? And, which North American regions are showing the greatest potential as the next wave of data center expansion takes shape? The seasoned data center industry leaders of our Executive Roundtable for the First Quarter of 2025 include: Danielle Rossi, Data Center Strategic Sales Leader, Trane John Pasta, Executive Vice President - Data Center Solutions, JLL Michael Lahoud, Co-Managing Partner, Stream Data Centers Ryan Baumann, Vice President of Sales, Power Solutions for the Americas, Rehlko Check out their answers to the third DCF Executive Roundtable question for Q1 of 2025: https://lnkd.in/eieJnw2D #datacenter #hyperscale #colocation #edge #AI #HPC #construction #sustainability #digitalinfrastructure

Zayo’s Fiber Bet: Scaling Long-Haul and Metro Networks for AI Data Centers As AI-driven data center growth is reshaping US network infrastructure, Zayo Group is doubling down on long-haul and metro fiber, expanding routes between key AI data center hubs to meet the demands of hyperscalers and cloud providers. DCF Senior Editor David Chernicoff examines in a cogent piece that also puts Zayo's latest moves in the context of its lead investor, DigitalBridge. Steve Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Zayo, explained how his company is amplifying its response to a demand that they have already been reacting to, saying: "Keeping pace with the next wave of AI growth will require new long-haul networks to enable the rapid scaling of capacity needs in both existing and emerging AI data center markets. In 2024, Zayo saw significant AI-driven demand for long-haul routes, including more than $1 billion in AI-related deals and an additional $3 billion in pipeline. This demand shows no signs of letting up. As the complexity of long-haul builds continues to be prohibitive to many providers, Zayo remains the only company building long-haul routes at scale to lead this next phase of infrastructure growth." DigitalBridge's ownership of fiber infrastructure provider Zayo enhances its ability to offer integrated solutions that cater to the growing needs of AI and cloud computing sectors. This strategic alignment of data center operations and fiber infrastructure positions DigitalBridge as a comprehensive enabler in the digital infrastructure landscape. Marc Ganzi, CEO of Zayo investor DigitalBridge, said: "As AI reshapes industries and accelerates economic transformation, this transaction underscores the vital nature of fiber and the critical role it plays as the backbone of innovation, productivity and market growth. With Crown Castle’s robust metro-focused assets, Zayo will be well-positioned to fuel AI adoption, enhance connectivity solutions and accelerate technological progress. We look forward to continuing to support Zayo as it helps to position the United States as a global powerhouse for AI and strengthen the country’s industrial capabilities." Full article: https://lnkd.in/eBjSbDhM #datacenter #hyperscale #colocation #fiber #fiberoptic #darkfiber #interconnection #networks #connectivity #AI #ML #IoT #edge #digitalinfrastructure #investment

Powering the AI Era: Overcoming Data Center Energy Challenges With Distributed Generation Join industry experts in this April 9 webinar as they explore the future of data center energy, revealing how innovative power solutions like fuel cells can help meet rising demand while balancing sustainability, cost, and speed. For the presentation, DCF Editor at Large Melissa Farney will host a talk with Bloom Energy's VP of Structured Finance, Kevin Passalacqua and Joel Jansen, SVP of Regulated Commercial Operations for American Electric Power (AEP) to discuss alternative power solutions, such as fuel cells, being deployed to address grid interconnection delays and enable faster time-to-market. With data centers projected to consume a growing share of the nation’s power, securing reliable and scalable energy is more important than ever. As such, the webinar will explore key insights from the 2025 Data Center Power Report from Bloom Energy, which reveals the expected need for 55 GW of data center IT capacity in the next five years and predicts that data centers could account for 8-12% of total U.S. power demand by 2030, up from 3-4% today. The conversation will also cover how energy-buying decisions are shifting beyond costs to include factors like sustainability, community impact, and faster time to power. Learn more and register to attend: https://lnkd.in/e68pT5GR #datacenter #hyperscale #colocation #energy #gigawatt #power #fuelcell #grid #sustainability

AI and increased digitization stretch the demand for data centers. Read this eBook to discover a 4-tiered approach for securing a data center without impeding daily operations. #datacenter #cybersecurity #datacentersecurity

Executive Roundtable: Cooling Imperatives for Managing High-Density AI Workloads For the second installment of Data Center Frontier's Executive Roundtable for Q1, we reached out to our panel of seasoned industry experts to gather their insights on the intricacies of emerging data center cooling technologies. We additionally asked about efficiency strategies they see being deployed to ensure operational stability and sustainability in cooling, while effectively managing the challenges posed by high-density computing environments. The expert data center industry leaders of DCF's Executive Roundtable for the First Quarter of 2025 include: Danielle Rossi, Data Center Strategic Sales Leader, Trane John Pasta, Executive Vice President - Data Center Solutions, JLL Michael Lahoud, Co-Managing Partner, Stream Data Centers Ryan Baumann, Vice President of Sales, Power Solutions for the Americas, Rehlko Read their responses to our second Executive Roundtable question for Q1 of 2025: https://lnkd.in/e-RYWryd #datacenter #hyperscale #colocation #edge #datacentercooling #liquidcooling #AI #GPU #sustainability #infrastructure

Cerebras Unveils Six Data Centers to Meet Accelerating Demand for AI Inference at Scale Putting a stake in the ground to define its role in artificial intelligence, AI accelerator developer Cerebras Systems announced they would be adding six new data centers to their global AI inference network, expanding capacity 20X to create the leading domestic high-speed inference cloud with 85% of the capacity in the United States. The inference cloud network will be able to serve over 40 million Llama 70B tokens per second. Inference networks are typically used in real-time AI applications, where pre-trained models make predictions, classify data, detect patterns, or generate outputs based on input data. DCF Senior Editor David Chernicoff takes the lead in this informative article examining how Cerebras hopes to give the cloud giants and other AI hyperscalers a run for their money. #datacenter #hyperscale #AI #ML #GPU #inference #cloud Read on: https://lnkd.in/eab8vbfm

Cerebras Unveils Six Data Centers to Meet Accelerating Demand for AI Inference at Scale Putting a stake in the ground to define its role in artificial intelligence, AI accelerator developer Cerebras Systems announced they would be adding six new data centers to their global AI inference network, expanding capacity 20X to create the leading domestic high-speed inference cloud with 85% of the capacity in the United States. The inference cloud network will be able to serve over 40 million Llama 70B tokens per second. Inference networks are typically used in real-time AI applications, where pre-trained models make predictions, classify data, detect patterns, or generate outputs based on input data. DCF Senior Editor David Chernicoff takes the lead in this informative article examining how Cerebras hopes to give the cloud giants and other AI hyperscalers a run for their money. #datacenter #hyperscale #AI #ML #GPU #inference #cloud Read on: https://lnkd.in/eab8vbfm

Voices of the Industry: The Rise of the “Fake” Data Center Developer — And How to Tell the Difference In this contribution to DCF's 'Voices of the Industry' forum, Stream Data Centers’ Co-Managing Partners Paul Moser and Michael Lahoud expand on the problem of “fake” data center developers and explain how investors and end users can separate the wheat from the chaff. In a trenchant piece, they write: "With computational requirements from recent AI developments growing significantly and our digital economy continuing to expand, the race to quickly build new data center capacity is fiercer than ever [...] To reduce uncertainty and ensure crucial capacity is available when and where it’s needed, the largest data center users are trying to shorten the time between when demand is confirmed and when capacity comes online. To accomplish this, these players are seeking out developers that have the financial wherewithal, technical understanding, and industry credibility to proactively develop land, secure power, and complete developments efficiently. Yet, there’s a difference between proactive development and purely speculative development, and environments like the one we’re in — characterized by massive but uncertain demand and constrained supply — tend to bring speculative developers out of the woodwork. Industry luminary Daniel Golding dubbed it the 'age of fake data centers.' [...] Differentiating the real from the fake is essential for utilities to get a handle on their actual pipeline. It is also essential for investors and end users to allocate their capital, time, and trust accordingly." Read on: https://lnkd.in/ekiqxJUH #datacenter #AI #ML #HPC #hyperscale #colocation #construction #cloud #investment

Executive Roundtable: Focus on Data Center Power Infrastructure and Energy Resilience in 2025 To begin DCF's Executive Roundtable for the First Quarter of 2025, we asked our distinguished panel of industry leaders for their perspective on technology and business strategies shaping the future of energy security, backup power, and the integration of hydrogen, natural gas, and nuclear energy for data centers. The seasoned data center industry leaders of DCF's Executive Roundtable for Q1 of 2025 include: Danielle Rossi, Data Center Strategic Sales Leader, Trane John Pasta, Executive Vice President - Data Center Solutions, JLL Michael Lahoud, Co-Managing Partner, Stream Data Centers Ryan Baumann, Vice President of Sales, Power Solutions for the Americas, Rehlko In addition to today's discussion, in articles throughout the rest of this week and into next week, our panel of executive thought leaders will offer their observations on other topical data center industry considerations for the First Quarter, including: -- Cooling the AI Surge with Innovations for High-Density Workloads -- Navigating Power and Land Constraints for Site Selection Amid Market Shifts -- Evolving Economics for Adapting to Rising Costs in Data Center Development Read on to see our panel's response to the first DCF Executive Roundtable question for Q1 2025: https://lnkd.in/ebcg_-hb #datacenter #hyperscale #colocation #AI #energy #power #behindthemeter #infrastructure