By Adil Attlassy

The phrase “The Sky is Falling” from an old folk tale seems to best characterize the current hysteria driven by unprecedented demand for digital capacity that outpaces our ability to build and bring facilities online. It’s a modern tale of the disparity between supply and demand we’re experiencing in the data center industry.

Over the past 12 months, demand for data centers has exploded to accommodate not only massive investments in AI but the continued growth in cloud computing spurred by the relentless need for global data volume. All that computing and data indeed need to live somewhere.

But we can only build so fast against a backdrop of skyrocketing demand when we deal with constraints like scarcity of land, limited power infrastructure, supply chain bottlenecks, permitting complexity, zoning, and workforce shortages – especially skilled workers.

Some see the current situation as an insurmountable challenge. It is not. To the fearful, I offer this advice borrowed from a time of great global turbulence: Keep Calm and Carry On.

First, some context drawn from history: We have survived and problem-solved our way out of prior industry challenges. The last time our industry faced what appeared to be our demise was the emergence of server virtualization and 1U micro-servers, which some thought signaled the end of the data center industry. On the contrary, it was simply a challenge that made us stronger.

A BIT OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
For perspective, let’s take a walk down memory lane. We first saw an explosion of digital demand in the 1990s. That was the birth of colocation services. Companies big and small needed reliability to keep their websites and servers up and running, and colocation was the answer.

A little more than two decades ago, colocation was no longer sufficient, driving a need for wholesale data centers, and later, hyperscale facilities when clients needed an entire building or campus. And this was all before the advent of AI.

During this frenzy of more data consumption, demand progressed from one cabinet to a cage, then half a hall, a whole hall, a building, half a campus, and then the whole campus. There’s been a natural progression. The sky is not falling.

WE WILL FIND OUR WAY
There’s another lesson history teaches us: the market has always found equilibrium and we will find undiscovered elements, invent new products, and conceive new ways to work, especially in time of need. Innovation is born when current trajectories are unsustainable, as now.

As a very real example, we have pushed silicon to its utmost physical limits. But there are new materials that represent breakthroughs in chip technology that could require less power and cooling.

Recently I read about a new NVIDIA Superchip, a breakthrough accelerated CPU designed for giantscale AI and high-performance computing applications, delivering ten times higher data performance. That opens a whole new world of solutions for our most complex computing problems.

And there will be more exciting innovations across multiple disciplines in the IT spectrum – not just data centers – to enable us to support and thrive within the next wave of growth in computing.

NOT AN EVOLUTION, BUT A REVOLUTION
Today we are living in the fourth Industrial Revolution and staring down the fifth, driven by AI. Once upon a time, Industrial Revolutions were spaced out by a century or more. My colleague Chief Innovation Officer Nancy Novak has spoken on the dizzying waves of new technological advances. She says that we barely have time to digest new technology before it’s time to recover, react and adopt new ones.

Now they come at us faster and faster. I’ve witnessed the birth of the internet, Colocation Services, hyperscale, Cloud Services and AI in my lifetime. While this era of momentous and frequent revolution may be terrifying to some, consider embracing the challenge and opportunity to innovate.

ADVICE ON KEEPING CALM
For customers concerned about the disparity between supply and demand and what it holds for the future, I offer this piece of advice: talk to your suppliers.

Engage them in an open conversation and ask them what worries them and what problems they’re trying to resolve. They may be overthinking their issues and imagining their challenges are larger than they are. I’ve seen clients plan for hypothetical – not actual needs – that keep them up at night. This hand wringing requires time and energy, when a better use of that energy may be collaborating on a solution with trusted partners.

Remember it’s a smart practice to seek advice from colleagues and industry mentors. Bring a group together around a conference table – or virtually – and talk through the issue together. Different ideas, life experiences and perspectives can hold the key to solving problems we all face together.

Adil Attlassy is Chief Technology Officer at Compass Datacenters. He can be reached at [email protected].

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