Data Center News Roundup: Data Center Woes at DBS, New Cooling Innovations

With data center news moving faster than ever, we want to make it easy for data center 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.

To keep up to date with all things data centers, subscribe to the Data Center Knowledge newsletter to get content straight to your inbox.

Back Online

Financial services firms DBS and Citigroup said their banking facilities have resumed following a disruption on October 14 that prevented customers from fulfilling transactions across various platforms.

Services were confirmed to be back online by the start of the week after a technical issue at an Equinix data center was resolved. Payment services were down for several hours on Saturday, and customers cited the inability to use their cards, access online banking facilities, or make cash withdrawals.

"A technical issue occurred at one of our data centers in Singapore that raised the temperatures in the data center and impacted some customers' operations," an Equinix spokesperson said. "The technical issue has been resolved and we are in contact with impacted customers."

Related:DBS, Citi's Banking Services Resume After Data Center Disruption

The news was followed by a separate announcement later in the week that DBS mobile wallet PayLah! had been impacted by another issue that resulted in intermittent access.

Services were said to have resumed on Friday. Data Center Knowledge has asked DBS if the two issues were related.

Blowing Hot and Cold

This week, DCK writer Antonella Gina Fleitas takes a deep dive into thermal design power and how the COOLERCHIPS initiative is helping to push the envelope of innovation when it comes to energy efficiency in data centers.

"COOLERCHIPS initiatives are at the forefront of research and development, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in terms of cooling technology," she writes.

"Not only do these projects have the potential to make our devices more efficient and durable, but they also contribute to reducing our overall carbon footprint."

Explore the full article to find out how the adoption of COOLERCHIPS technology can lead to substantial energy savings.

New Facilities Open

In data center construction news, Vantage Data Centers has announced the completion of its Quincy, Washington campus.

The final size of the three-building campus, which was begun in 2011, is 89 MW of IT capacity across the 68-acre site. More than $1 billion was invested in the development.

Related:COOLERCHIPS Project Takes On Data Centers' Chip Cooling Challenge

Staying in the US, plans for a new data center in Rosemount, Minnesota, took a step forward after authorities approved three electric service agreements, while a former police station in Ansonia, Connecticut, may be turned into a colocation facility.

In Africa, Medallion Data Centers will cut the ribbon on its second data center in Lagos, Nigeria, on October 24.

LOS2, located on Medallion's Victoria Island campus, will reportedly provide access to the 2Africa subsea cable system. The company will also rebrand to Digital Realty following the tech giant's acquisition of the company back in 2021.

Squirrel in the Substation

And finally, if ever there were a reason to highlight the importance of dual power feeds for data centers, we need look no further than Bend, Oregon, where last week a squirrel caused a mass power outage.

According to local press, issues at the downtown Bend Pacific Power substation caused a large power outage affecting more than 18,000 households and knocking out some of the city's traffic lights.

Pacific Power spokesperson Simon Gutierrez told KTVZ the official cause was "animal interference."

"After some investigation, crews found a squirrel inside the Bend plant substation," Gutierrez said. "Our hypothesis right now is that the squirrel interfered with some electrical equipment, causing a fault, and that was the source of the outage."

Other Great Reads on DCK This Week

Nvidia Warns of Product Snags From Tightening US Chip Rules. New regulations restrict the sale of most advanced consumer chips, including those used in AI data centers.

The State of Data Center Storage Cooling in 2023. With data center operators facing increased pressure to reduce their energy consumption, efficient data center cooling is more important than ever.

SD-WAN vs MPLS: What's The Difference and Which Is Better? While SD-WAN offers many advantages over MPLS, the choice between them should be based on the specific needs of the enterprise.

Japan's Socionext Unveils Advanced Chip Collaboration With TSMC, Arm. Manufacturer's next-generation chips for the data center and 5G market will be launched in 2025.

Gartner Predicts Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2024. Gartner sees these 10 tech trends driving significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs and IT leaders over the next 36 months.