Data Center News Roundup: HPE Acquires Juniper, Malaysia Embarks on Growth Vision

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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Enterprise and Infrastructure Deals

Analysts’ predictions that 2024 would bring a “wave of mergers” already appear to be ringing true, as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company this week agreed to buy Juniper Networks for $14 billion.

The move will allow the data center hardware giant to expand its presence in the networking technology sector. HPE CEO Antonio Neri said: “Networking will be the core foundation of everything we do.”

As Wall Street mulled HPE’s expansion bid, lawmakers in Malaysia and Singapore outlined ambitious investment plans of their own, as the two nations signed a memorandum of understanding on a special economic zone planned for Johor.

"The whole idea of working on the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone is to propel Johor as a new engine of growth for the country beyond its current trajectory [of] leveraging on its own natural resources," Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli told Nikkei Asia.

Related:Could AI Factories for a Single Tenant be the Latest Data Center Trend?

The special economic zone is aimed at stimulating the tech, medical equipment, food processing, and data center markets.

It comes as work progresses on the RTS Link Project, a railway shuttle link that connects Johor with Singapore. The connecting span is now complete, with service expected to start in 2026.

Omdia analyst Siraj Aziz said the news bodes well for the region’s data center industry.

“Malaysia's data center market, especially Johor, would increasingly benefit from the proximity to Singapore's world-class data center infrastructure, talents, technical know-how, services,” Aziz said.

AI Factories

Also trending this week was Data Center Knowledge’s special feature on a new type of data center that may soon start to flourish amid the AI boom: "AI factories". These data centers are focused on a single application by a single customer, marking a shift from shared multi-tenant data centers.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang discussed this up-and-coming model on a recent earnings call to discuss the company’s quarterly financial results with analysts.

“These new data centers [host] very few applications, if not one application, used by basically one tenant,” he said. “It processes data, it trains models and then generates tokens and generates AI. And we call these new data centers ‘AI factories.’

Related:Nvidia Rolls Out New Chips, Claims Leadership of AI PC Race

Check out the full article to learn more about AI factories may soon become a necessity, particularly as digital infrastructure operators scramble to keep up with rising demand.

Cutting the Ribbon

In construction news, data center provider NorthC is building a 5 MW facility in Frankfurt, Germany, and T.Loop has acquired an 800 sq.m data center in central Stockholm, Sweden.

“We see great potential in this facility where we will be able to reuse the existing infrastructure and thus quickly offer the center’s colocation services to our customers,” said Mathias Lindqvist, Chief Engineer and one of T.Loop's founders.

In India, Reliance Industries, in partnership with Brookfield, is preparing to cut the ribbon on a new data center in Chennai. According to The Times of India, the 20 MW facility will come online next week and will eventually be joined by a planned 40 MW data center.

New Industry Association

Eight global data center operators have banded together to form the first-of-its-kind trade association in Asia-Pacific to advocate for policies and regulations that support the sustainable growth of the data center industry in the region.

The Asia-Pacific Data Centre Association (APDCA) was launched this week to represent the collective interests of data center operators, suppliers, and other stakeholders. The APDCA founding members include Digital Realty, Equinix, Global Switch, NTT Global Data Centers, and Vantage Data Centers.

These companies represent 40% of the APAC market, according to Synergy.

Other Great Reads on DCK This Week

10 Key Data Center Acronyms Shaping the Industry in 2024. Discover the data center acronyms and concepts that will drive conversations in the industry this year.

A Guide to Server Rack Sizes for Data Centers. This guide deciphers the best server rack sizes for optimal data center efficiency. 

World Chip Sales Return to Growth in Sign of Improving Demand. Semiconductor demand is starting to rebound on the back of emerging technologies such as AI.

Nvidia Rolls Out New Chips, Claims Leadership of AI PC Race. Company unveils three new desktop chips that will reduce the need to rely on remote AI services.

What the AI Adoption Surge Means for IT Skill Development. The latest IBM Global AI Adoption Index suggests that acquiring AI-related skills will make IT pros more marketable.