Data Center News Roundup: Precision Chips, Azure Attack

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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Broadcom’s VMware Strategy Isn’t Meant to Confuse

In the wake of Broadcom’s $69 billion acquisition of VMware, an overhaul of VMware's licensing and product structure has stirred confusion among customers and partners alike.

As a result, this week, Prashanth Shenoy, vice president of cloud platform, infrastructure, and solutions marketing for Broadcom’s VCF division, addressed this confusion, emphasizing a strategic focus on product consolidation and a subscription model.

“This is [a] humongous change, and that has absolutely caused confusion in the market. We could have done a better job communicating,” said Shenoy.

While Broadcom aims to streamline operations and simplify its product offerings, concerns persist over the impact on pricing flexibility and potential migration to competitors like Nutanix. Despite assurances of continued innovation, some customers remain skeptical given Broadcom's track record with acquisitions.

A Big Machine for Precision Chips

This week, ASML unveiled its latest €350 million extreme ultraviolet chipmaking system. Weighing in at 331,000 pounds (as much as two Airbus A320s) the machine can print semiconductor lines as thin as 8 nanometers, 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation.

According to ASML, installation of the first system took six months, 250 crates, and 250 engineers to complete.

Hackers Strike Azure Corporate Clouds

On the security front, our sister site, Dark Reading, reported on an ongoing hacking campaign targeting Microsoft Azure corporate clouds through spear-phishing, compromising dozens of environments and hundreds of user accounts.

At once scattershot and targeted, the attacks involve various tactics such as data exfiltration and impersonation, with a focus on strategic individuals within organizations.

With this in mind, Data Center Knowledge writer Christopher Tozzi took a closer look at the measures companies can take beyond standard best practices to protect data centers against ransomware attacks.

Data Center Deals and Developments

In development news this week, Microsoft moved forward on plans to grow its data center presence in Germany, South Africa, and the United States.

Notably, the tech giant announced Thursday a €3.2 billion investment to expand cloud data centers and AI infrastructure in Germany.

On X, Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith wrote of the company’s single largest German investment: “Microsoft is committed to enabling companies across the German economy to use AI to remain at the cutting edge of global competitiveness. This 3.2 billion EUR investment will double Microsoft’s AI infrastructure and cloud capacity to meet the country’s accelerating demand for AI services and offer digital skills training for more than 1.2 million Germans by the end of 2025.”

In Bangladesh, the nation’s first cloud data center began operations this week. Known as Meghna Cloud, the facility is a joint venture between Bangladesh Data Centre Company Limited (BDCCL) and Gennext Technologies. As part of the agreement, Gennext is planning to invest $500 million in the project over the next five years.

Meanwhile, NTT, the IT infrastructure and services company, announced the development of its first Paris-based data center campus. As part of a larger data center expansion, this follows the company’s recent announcements of plans for campuses in Virginia and Chennai, India.

Finally, back stateside, Expedient, the US-based cloud provider, announced the addition of a former Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. data center to its portfolio. Located near Columbus, Ohio, the 102,000 square foot facility is Expedient’s fifteenth data center in the US and its fifth (and largest) in Ohio.

Other Great Reads on DCK This Week

Is Rear Rack Cooling Right For Your Data Center Operations? Rear rack cooling offers multiple benefits, but there are some potential installation challenges. Find out if rear rack cooling is the right approach for your data center.

RAM Disk for Hosting Hyper-V VMs – A Viable Option? RAM disks provide a potential storage solution for Hyper-V VMs. Learn about the pros and cons of hosting Hyper-V VMs on RAM disks.

Semiconductor Advancement: Is Moore's Law Finally Dead? Semiconductor progress continues to advance, but is a slowdown inevitable? Opinions differ.

Akamai Targets Edge Computing Market With Gecko. Gecko takes compute workloads that typically reside in centralized data centers and supports them in hard-to-reach, edge locations.

California Lawmaker Unveils Landmark AI Bill. A proposal to force companies to test AI models before releasing them could inspire similar regulations around the US.

US to Launch $5B Research Hub in China Chips Race. New semiconductor research consortium aimed at bolstering chip design and hardware innovation in the US.