The Data Center Frontier Show Endeavor Business Media

For this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show Podcast, DCF Editor in Chief Matt Vincent sat down for a chat with  Christopher McLean, PE, ATD, LEED AP.
Specializing in the design, operations and construction of data centers, Chris is a Principal at Critical Facility Group in Boston. He previously held Director-level roles at a global engineering and construction corporation, a consulting engineering firm, as well as at a carrier hotel and colocation facility. 
Grounded in journeyman desktop support and hardware specification expertise, McLean's data center experience holistically encompasses all aspects of data center delivery, including elements of modular design and construction, design engineering, and facility operations. 
He is a frequent presenter at technical conferences, and contributor to industry publications.
We caught up with Chris shortly after his appearance presenting an AI facility design and construction case study on the seminar stage at Data Center World. 
Our conversation touched on  the challenges posed by high-density AI designs in data centers and the overall "state of liquid cooling" for AI. 
Additionally, the importance of a pragmatic approach in recycling IT assets and the adoption of new battery technologies was highlighted. 
An increasing interest in nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) for meeting the power demands of data centers and the challenges of the AI era, and the potential economic and community impact of these technologies, was also discerned and discussed. 
Talk also ranged over such subjects as data center controls, building automation, electrical power monitoring systems, and building management systems to enhance total product delivery to data center operators.
Here's a timeline of the podcast's key moments:
2:31 - Discussion centers on the increasing interest and viability of nuclear energy, particularly SMRs, in meeting the rising power demands of data centers.
5:42 - Talk turns to the diversity of SMR designs, safety features, public perception challenges, and the potential positive economic impact and innovation these technologies could bring to the industry.
10:00 - DCF leans into Chris' insight as a design engineer, leading to a discussion on the challenges posed by high-density AI designs in data centers, the need for precise load information for effective design, and the necessity of creating flexible environments to accommodate rapidly evolving technology, while avoiding overshooting or undershooting design requirements.
15:32 - DCF solicits opinion on the state of liquid cooling for AI, as the discussion goes on to specifically compare and contrast direct to chip with immersion cooling technologies and methods.
16:02 - Further exploration of the deployment of immersion cooling technology in data centers, with McLean considering the hallmarks of the mechanical engineering team and CFD models being employed at Critical Facility Group in terms of evaluation and potential implementation.
21:59 - Discussion turns to data center BMS trends and insights on the evolution of fire protection in the industry, specifically focusing on the transition from MEP firms to specialty fire protection groups.
25:10 - Thoughts on a pragmatic approach to recycling and sustainability in data centers, focusing on repurposing IT assets, particularly in the context of the AI revolution and the importance of giving obsolete components a second life.
31:04 - Talk ranges from discussion about Single-Pair Ethernet technologies, power issues, renewable energy, battery backup, and the potential future trends in the data center industry.
33:03 - McLean elaborates on the relative adoption of battery technologies including lithium-ion, nickel-zinc, and the challenges faced in replacing valve regulated lead–acid (VRLA) batteries, emphasizing the need for education and innovation in the industry.
 

The latest episode of the Data Center Frontier Show Podcast presents an Editors' Summit of sorts, as DCF's founder and Editor at Large Rich Miller drops by to join in the discussion with Editor in Chief Matt Vincent and Senior Editor David Chernicoff.
The editors discuss the challenges of power availability in leading data center markets and the concept of Gigawatt data Center campuses (as reflected by Rich's latest article) as a solution, focusing on renewable energy and innovative designs.
Microsoft's commitment to ten gigawatts of renewable energy, as well as the Infrastructure Masons recommendation of clean energy parks amounting to about the same, is mentioned, along with the challenges posed by climate change and the need for innovation in renewable energy. 
The pricing out of small data centers due to demand from hyperscalers is also discussed, as were the present, burgeoning prospects for nuclear energy to power the data center industry, including the absolutely accelerating nuclear SMR frontier, of which much was heard at Data Center World (Apr. 15-18) in Washington, DC.

For this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, DCF's editors sat down with Udi Paret, Chief Business Officer of ZutaCore, and Alison Deane, ZutaCore's VP of Marketing, to discuss the company's impactful showing at the NVIDIA GTC [GPU Technology Conference] event this past March.
Held at the San Jose Convention Center in the heart of Silicon Valley, both ZutaCore executives were intensively on hand for the event.
A Busy GTC for Zutacore 
At GTC, ZutaCore showcased its direct-to-chip, waterless liquid cooling technology, and announced support for the NVIDIA H100 and H200 Tensor Core GPUs to help maximize data centers' AI performance while delivering sustainability benefits. 
"I wore them out," said Deane of her press scheduling at NVIDIA GTC for Paret and his counterpart at GTC, ZutaCore CEO, Erez Freibach.
Paret and Deane said that Zutacore drew significant interest at GTC for the breadth of the company's announcements surrounding its HyperCool platform, comprised of direct-to-chip, waterless two-phase liquid cooling technology.
ZutaCore's HyperCool dielectric cold plate liquid cooling system involves a direct-contact, self-regulated, pool-boiling based evaporator, enabling networking and simultaneously cooling all chips on-demand. 
Several leading server manufacturers are engaged with ZutaCore to complete the certification and testing on the NVIDIA  GPU platforms. Compact, easy to install, and capable of cooling up 1500-watt processors and above, the company notes the platform is also qualified by processor manufacturers Intel and AMD, and deployed in major server manufacturers including Dell, SuperMicro, ASUS, Pegatron.
Centrally during the GTC 2024 event, ZutaCore showcased its H100 and H200 waterless dielectric cold plates supporting densities up to 1500W in the booths of Boston Limited, Hyve Solutions, and Pegatron.
Comparative Cooling Challenges
During the podcast, Paret emphasized the advantages of ZutaCore's Hypercool technology, while addressing comparative challenges faced by single-phase water-based solutions. "The AI explosion is causing a market shift and positioning ZutaCore strategically," he said.
With the NVIDIA H100’s ability to speed up large language models by 30x over the previous technology generation, and the H200 being touted as the world’s most efficient GPU for supercharging AI and HPC workloads, it's safe to these are two of the highest performing chips ever designed (even leaving aside NVIDIA's much-balleyhooed Blackwell platform.) 
However, with each GPU consuming 700W of power, this will challenge data centers that are already struggling to control factors of heat, energy consumption and footprint. 
ZutaCore’s HyperCool direct-to-chip waterless two-phase liquid cooling technology was designed specifically to answer such demands, and has already been proven to cool processors of 1500W or more, and currently for 100 kW per rack of computing power. 
“Next-generation GPUs have unique cooling requirements that are most effectively solved by waterless, direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology for current GPU of 1500W while increasing rack-processing density by 300%,” said ZutaCore CEO Freibach, who is a co-founder of the company. 
“Not only do hyperscalers eliminate the risk and massive expense of water leakage in the server, but they can also scale their cooling needs with little to no modifications to current real estate, power, or cooling systems. This is a game changer for the future of AI and HPC.”
Meanwhile, the ZutaCore executives noted how the increasing need for sustainable AI solutions highlights the importance of sustainable practices in data centers. 
In the arena of such concerns, ZutaCore's partnership and white-label sales agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) dramatically addresses the pressing challenges faced by data centers today, including the enhancement of heat exhaust efficiency, promotion of energy conservation, and decarbonization.

For this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show Podcast, DCF Editor in Chief Matt Vincent sits down for an instructive chat with Phillip Koblence, a strategic executive and ubiquitous thought leader in the data center and network space. 
Koblence co-founded NYI in 1996 and has successfully navigated through an ever-shifting infrastructure landscape, growing the company from a single data center in Lower Manhattan to a robust network with executional capabilities in key national and international markets. 
His leadership, focus on customer experience, and ability to cut through complexity and hype, has positioned NYI as an industry leader in high-touch infrastructure solutions. Koblence is also CEO of Critical Ventures, a consulting agency offering a range of services to help clients, owners and investors optimize the value of critical infrastructure assets.
Koblence sits on the DE-CIX North America Advisory Board as well as on the Board of OIX (formerly Open-IX). He is co-founder of the Nomad Futurist Foundation and podcast, designed to demystify the world of critical infrastructure and inspire younger generations to join the industry. 
The interview begins with a discussion of NYI's entry into 60 Hudson Street and the challenges of retrofitting legacy buildings for modern data center needs, while emphasizing the importance of connectivity and collaboration in the digital infrastructure industry, and highlighted the rapid pace of technological advancements such as AI.
Here's a timeline of the podcast's highlights:
2:03 - Koblence discusses NYI's entry into Manhattan's historic colocation and interconnection hub, 60 Hudson Street, emphasizing the importance of connectivity in New York City's digital infrastructure evolution.
6:20 - Koblence elaborates on the challenges and considerations when retrofitting legacy buildings like 60 Hudson for modern data center needs, highlighting the importance of creative solutions and understanding the nuances of different deployments.
11:38 - The discussion turns to an exploration of deploying data centers in skyscrapers, the evolving criticality of digital infrastructure, and the need for redundancy and a "data center mindset" in reckoning with society's reliance on connectivity.
20:02 - Remarks on the rapid pace of technological advancements, specifically the increasing densities of GPUs such as Nvidia's H100, H200, Grace Hopper, and Blackwell chips.
20:32 - More on the exponential increase in densities within the digital infrastructure community and predictions of a future "flattening out" of density growth.
23:59 - Koblence emphasizes the continued relevance of legacy facilities such as 2 megawatt (MW) or 5 MW data centers in modern deployments, particularly in major connectivity hubs. The concept of the edge is also discussed in the context of facilitating connectivity with AI sites.
26:59 - Koblence elaborates on the importance of collaboration and creating cohesive solutions across various data center facilities, while emphasizing the role of NYI as a solutions facilitator and discussing partnerships with Hudson IX and other providers.



31:22 -  Koblence elaborates on the mission of the Nomad Futurist foundation to demystify the world of digital infrastructure, highlighting the simplicity of the industry beneath the technical complexities, and emphasizing transparency and accessibility in making connectivity and digital infrastructure understandable and available.




 


Recent DCF Show Podcast Episodes: 
DCF Show: Data Center PR Practice Fosters Coalitions, Community Outreach to Reduce Development Backlash  
DCF Show: Data Center Construction and Dallas Market Talk with Burns & McDonnell 
DCF Show: The Top 5 Data Center Industry Stories of Q4 
DCF Show: Steve Madden, Equinix VP of Digital Transformation and Segmentation Marketing 
DCF Show: 8 Key Data Center Industry Themes for 2024, Part 3     

As recorded on March 22, 2024, this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show Podcast featured the following participants: 
• Matt Vincent, Editor in Chief and Podcast Host, Data Center Frontier • Ali Heydari, Technical Director and Distinguished Engineer, NVIDIA • Marcus Hopwood, Product Management Director, Equinix • Bernie Malouin, CEO and Founder, JetCool  The podcast discussion begins with a focus on NVIDIA's latest insights, as imparted by Heydari, in the context of products, partnerships, and trend-leadership, as revealed at the recent NVIDIA GTC 2024 AI Conference (Mar. 18-21). 
The conversation opens up to look at broader implications and developments within the tech and data center industries, such as Equinix's plans to enable liquid cooling at more than 100 data centers globally, and facets of their latest partnership with NVIDIA, as characterized by Hopwood. 
The discussion turns to JetCool's history of providing innovative liquid cooling solutions for high-density chipsets, underlining the critical role of cooling technologies in support of the rapid growth of AI applications in data centers. 
The talk also explores ways of advancing efficiency and sustainability in high-powered clusters through warm coolants and heat reuse, considering energy efficiency directives in the EU and UK.
View a timeline of the podcast's highlights and read the full article about the podcast.

For this episode of the DCF Show podcast, we interview Jason Carolan, Chief Innovation Officer at data center operator Flexential. He’s a 25-year expert in the enterprise IT industry, with experience leading companies through technological evolutions like the one we’re experiencing right now. 
Carolan believes there is a bigger story to uncover from the sheer dollar amount of Nvidia’s recent blockbuster valuation. In response to Nvidia’s market dominance in AI and data centers, Carolan wanted to discuss larger trends that may follow from this specific news moment. 
According to Carolan:  “Nvidia's earnings results and forecasts for a continued AI boom doesn't come as too much of a surprise with the volume of businesses that are increasingly testing and utilizing the technology.
Nvidia's data center business is a combination of GPU and their network technologies, which further showcases the importance of high performance architectures that can support next generation AI demands. The company is currently forecasted to ship 4-5 times more GPUs this coming year – indicating another trend line with little competition in sight. 
As inference matures, we will see more diversity in chip suppliers but that is a ways off. The bottom line is that, now with accelerating AI rollouts, companies will need more compute capacity, ultra-high bandwidth and very low latency in order to succeed.”