Data Center News Roundup: New Facilities Unveiled, AI Gold Rush Continues

With data center news moving faster than ever, we want to make it easy for industry professionals to cut through the noise and find the most important stories of the week.

The Data Center Knowledge News Roundup brings you the latest news and developments across the data center industry – from investments and mergers to security threats and industry trends.

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Fresh Data Center Developments

There was big news in the design and construction sector this week, as Microsoft announced it would establish nine new data centers in Australia over the next two years.

The move forms part of a $3.2 billion cloud computing and AI infrastructure plan that the company described as its latest investment in the country in 40 years.

Announced as part of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's visit to the US, the investment will help Microsoft grow its data centers across Canberra, Sydney, and Melbourne by 45% – from 20 sites to 29.

The announcement was capped off by a positive first-quarter earnings report from Microsoft. Redmond's shares were on track for their biggest gain in three months after the company reported strong sales, bolstered by recovering cloud-computing growth amid demand for new artificial intelligence products.

In other investment news this week, Edge Centres has opened its fifth data center in just six months. The Australian company took to LinkedIn this week to announce the opening of EC105, a 2 MW facility in St Louis, Missouri.

In Ohio, QTS Data Centers plans to invest around $1.5 billion in four facilities in New Albany, Cologix has cut the ribbon on a new, 15 MW data center in Toronto, Canada, and construction is said to have resumed at Meta data centers across the US.

Across the Atlantic, CGG has opened a new, 500-petaflop High-Performance Computing (HPC) Hub at an undisclosed location in the UK, and Digital Realty is reportedly planning to build a fourth data center at its campus near Zurich Airport in Switzerland.

Earnings Calls Show Positive Results

In addition to Microsoft, this week saw a flurry of quarterly earnings reports and acquisition activity from some of the world's biggest tech firms.

Intel surged in late trading after predicting a return to sales growth in the fourth quarter, fueled by an improving personal computer market and a more competitive product line.

The AI gold rush continued at pace, as Alibaba and Tencent joined a $340 million funding round for AI Startup Zhipu, while AI chip startup Rebellions is understood to have engaged with investors in a bid to raise $100 million.

And from investment to divestment, bankrupt Cyxtera Technologies is reportedly in "advanced talks" to sell a large swath of its data center portfolio to an infrastructure management firm.

Live Wires

In digital infrastructure news this week, global investment firm KKR is understood to be nearing a deal to inject about $400 million into Malaysian subsea cable company OMS Group.

According to Bloomberg, the US-based private equity giant is in advanced talks to buy a stake in OMS, which could help accelerate the subsea cable firm's expansion plans.

Meanwhile, Google has unveiled the South Pacific Connect initiative, which will deliver two new transpacific subsea cables – Honomoana and Tabua – to help increase the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity in the Pacific.

"The government of Fiji is delighted to partner with Google in achieving this momentous milestone to bolster digital connectivity and resilience," said the Prime Minister of Fiji, Sitiveni Rabuka.

Hot Topics

The Data Center Knowledge team continues to focus on the latest issues impacting data center operators around the world.

We took a closer look at how California's new climate disclosure laws could have an adverse effect on data centers.

"While sustainability has become core to the hyperscale cloud and other large technology tenants, monitoring and ensuring forced compliance across the full supply chain becomes yet another undue burden for placing a new data center development in California," said Irtiaz Ahmad, managing director at Solomon Partners.

Elsewhere, writer Christopher Tozzi explores how data center operators can capitalize on the cloud repatriation trend.

"Who benefits from cloud repatriation? Part of the answer, of course, is the businesses that repatriate their public workloads to private infrastructure to achieve better cost, performance, or security outcomes," Tozzi explained.

"But another key beneficiary of cloud repatriation – a practice that is currently surging, with 80% of organizations planning to repatriate at least some portions of their cloud workloads in the coming year, according to IDC – is the data center industry. Indeed, repatriation is likely to be one of the key factors driving continued data center growth over the next several years."

Check out the full story to find out why cloud repatriation is great news for the data center industry.

Other Great Reads on DCK This Week

Amazon Tones Down Its Data Center Noise After Residents Sound the Alarm. After a year, the Great Oak neighborhood outside Manassas, Virginia, gets some relief.

Data Centers to Northern Nevada: No Signs of Slowing. Data centers represent one of the hottest sectors of industrial development in Northern Nevada.

SolarWinds Is Weighing Potential Sale – Report. IT infrastructure management software firm is understood to be in talks with financial advisers.

Google, Nvidia Back AI Startup That Helps Combat Chip Shortage. Machine learning firm CentML raises $27 million amid AI gold rush.

GPU-as-a-Service: What IT Pros Need to Know. Here's how GPU-as-a-service works and when should consider using a GPUaaS offering.