Data Center News Roundup: Questions of Gender Equity and AI Security

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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AI Here, AI There, AI Everywhere

Artificial intelligence had a big week – from major investments to new regulations – with direct implications for data center industry.

AI Security and Compliance

On Monday, the US government-backed nonprofit organization Mitre opened a new AI Assurance and Discovery Lab. Based in McLean, VA, the lab can accommodate 50 people in person and 4,000 via remote connections and will be used to test AI systems used by federal agencies for security risks, flaws, and biases.

A thirty-minute drive away, however, in Gaithersburg, MD, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (a government lab tasked with developing tests for AI security) working conditions are rapidly deteriorating. Years of chronic underfunding have led to frequent blackouts, black mold, and a leaky roof, highlighting a resources gap between government orgs and the private sector.

Related:International Data Center Day Quiz: Put Your Knowledge to the Test

Across the pond, in Europe, the European Union overwhelmingly passed its AI Act to establish guidelines and penalties for businesses using artificial intelligence. Once finalized in May, the AI Act will be implemented in phases between 2024 and 2027.

Amazon Invests in Anthropic

Amazon announced an additional $2.75 billion investment in Anthropic, completing a deal made last year to expand a partnership between the companies.

As part of the deal, the AI startup agreed to use Amazon’s custom-built computer chips and AWS data centers to power some of its operations.

The Cost of AI Demand

Finally, according to the CEO of National Grid, electricity demand from UK data centers is expected to jump sixfold over the next ten years as a boom in artificial intelligence requires increased computing power. As a result, National Grid is considering an ultra-high-voltage network (as much as 800 kilovolts) to double the infrastructure’s current capacity.

However, in a Tuesday analysis, Chris Tozzi argues that although a growing portion of the servers inside data centers will be devoted to AI workloads, it's a stretch to argue that AI will completely upend the data center industry.

Related:United Nations Adopts U.S.-Led Resolution To Safely Develop AI

He writes: “Any uptick in demand that results from AI will probably be mostly temporary … and it would be unwise to expand data center capacity in a major way, only to discover that that capacity is no longer needed beyond the medium term.”

DEI in the Data Center

This week, Data Center Knowledge writers investigated the current state and possible futures of gender equity in the IT and data center space.

In Women in IT: 'Significant Strides' Made, Yet Challenges Persist, Nathan Eddy draws on Ensono's 2024 Speak Up survey to detail the distinct challenges women continue to face in the tech workplace – from grappling with balancing caregiving responsibilities alongside in-person work to reporting discomfort or unsafety due to microaggressions or discrimination.

In The DEI Illusion: Breaking Gender Bias in Data Centers, Soni Brown looks at why data centers look like boys’ clubs and what can be done to boost the recruitment and retention of women.

She asks: “Women want to work in data centers but are we looking at the right factors to enable their success?”

Data Center Deals and Developments

In data center developments, Avant Technologies is building a micro data center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as the company looks to capitalize on the demand for AI training infrastructure.

On the heels of announcing its first Paris data center and breaking ground on a 12MW Bangkok data center, NTT Data announced plans to construct a 26.6 acre data center campus outside of Berlin. The 96MW Brieselang campus will be NTT’s third Berlin-based data center.

Elsewhere in Germany, Sirius Real Estate sold its 37,830 sqm Frankfurt business park site to an unnamed data center developer for €40.1 million.

In Asia, the US-based investment firm Bain Capital is looking for fresh backers to support an expansion of Chindata Group Holdings, which operates hyperscale data centers in China, India, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Finally, on Thursday, Lendlease and Princeton Digital Group completed construction of one of Japan’s largest data centers to-date – a six-story, 48MW facility in the Greater Tokyo area.

Other Great Reads on DCK This Week

Data Center Physical Infrastructure Market Saw Record Growth. According to Dell’Oro Group’s latest Data Center Physical Infrastructure report, revenues for the data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) sector were up 16% year-on-year, as pandemic-induced supply chain issues started to diminish.

NTT and NEC Eye a Huge Increase in Subsea Cable Capacity. The companies successfully tested a coupled 12-core multi-core fiber over 7,280 km in an experiment that simulated the conditions of submarine cables on the ocean floor.

How AI Is Poised to Upend Cloud Networking. To fully leverage the cloud for hosting AI workloads, optimizing your cloud networking strategy is essential.

Amazon Bets $150 Billion on Data Centers Required for AI Boom. Amazon’s spending spree is a show of force as the company looks to retain cloud computing edge over Microsoft and Google.