While much has been written, said and taught about data center sustainability, there is still limited consensus on the definition and scope of an ideal data center sustainability strategy. This lack of clarity has created much confusion, encouraged many operators to pursue strategies with limited results, and enabled some to make claims that are ultimately […]| Uptime Institute Blog
“Reasoning” models — and their offshoots, such as “deep research” — have emerged as a major trend in generative AI, helping improve the accuracy and reliability of responses to complex problems. However, this approach significantly increases the computational costs of generating responses. The imitation of reasoning means a higher consumption of server capacity, requiring additional […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Uptime Institute Journal is our industry blog, collecting commentary and insights from our global consultants, partners and network of clients world-wide.| Uptime Institute Blog
Many grid operators are struggling to meet customer power demands — in both volume and quality. As demand rises, utilities must also monitor and account for customer usage patterns that can degrade power quality (and add costs) for others on the grid. A 2024 Bloomberg analysis revealed a concentration of residential power issues occurring near […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Uptime Institute has tracked industry average PUE numbers, at intervals, over 12 years (see figure below). And in 2019, for the first time, there was no recorded improvement.| Uptime Institute Blog
When it comes to generative AI models, the belief that bigger is better is an enduring one — shaping a wide array of high-stakes decisions from corporate investments to energy and permitting policy to technology export controls. A defining technical feature in the pursuit of ever-bigger models is denser compute hardware. This makes sense: as […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Major publicly reported outages in 2024 were longer and, therefore, more impactful than in previous years because of the growing number of ransomware attacks, according to data compiled by Uptime Intelligence. The data also shows an increase in the proportion of outages that were caused deliberately. The latest data relating to major publicly reported outages […] The post Publicly reported outages see increase in deliberate attacks appeared first on Uptime Institute Blog.| Uptime Institute Blog
Water use has become a benchmark metric for data center operational efficiency and sustainability, as well as a frequent target of community criticism. Operators should track and optimize their water use to protect the environment and secure the facility cooling’s autonomy when its capacity relies on water. However, water use does not fit into a […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Conditions will soon be ripe for widespread use of direct liquid cooling (DLC) — a collection of techniques that uses fluid to remove heat from IT electronics instead of air — and it may even become essential. Currently, air cooling is still dominant with DLC remaining a niche option — around 85% of enterprise IT […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Over the past year, data center operators have reduced formal mentorship programs and workforce initiatives, but this seems to have had little impact on the number of successfully recruited new hires, according to findings from the Uptime Institute Data Center Staffing and Recruitment Survey 2024. While such programs are generally regarded as effective in attracting […]| Uptime Institute Blog
The enthusiasm for generative AI is attracting serious investment, and the associated power and cooling requirements will pose a significant challenge for the data centers that house it. Upcoming AI training clusters will escalate silicon power and rack density to unprecedented heights, upending infrastructure design conventions and accelerating the adoption of cold plate and immersion […] The post AI embraces liquid cooling, but enterprise IT is slow to follow appeared first on Uptime Inst...| Uptime Institute Blog
One of the most significant differences between cloud and traditional (i.e., non-cloud) software is how resiliency is built into the applications. When architecting a cloud application, the onus is on software developers to architect resiliency in their application architecture. Conversely, in a more traditional application, data center teams, infrastructure engineers and software developers work together […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Generative AI has created a surge in demand for large-scale clusters of GPUs. AI models need training, and this is vastly accelerated by using GPUs. These clusters parallel process many mathematical functions within the neural network software architectures that enable generative AI to classify and predict. However, clusters of this size are expensive and require […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Projections of data center capacity growth have exploded with the emergence of AI infrastructure and the continuing expansion and integration of standard IT functionality into the global economy. Electricity demand is growing in developed markets for the first time in more than a decade, led by proposed data center expansions and efforts to electrify the […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Over the past year, demand for GPUs to train generative AI models has soared. Some organizations have invested in GPU clusters costing millions of dollars for this purpose. Cloud services offered by the major hyperscalers and a new wave of GPU-focused cloud providers deliver an alternative to dedicated infrastructure for those unwilling, or unable, to […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Rising concerns about cryptocurrency mining energy use have led the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) to launch a six-month emergency data reporting mandate (on January 26, 2024) to obtain information from 82 cryptocurrency mining companies. The emergency order which was approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires cryptocurrency miners to provide information […]| Uptime Institute Blog
Regular readers of Uptime Institute’s annual data center survey, the longest running of its kind, already know that the industry average power usage effectiveness (PUE, a ratio of total site power and IT power) has trended sideways in recent years. Since 2020, it has been stuck in the 1.55 to 1.59 band. Even going back […]| Uptime Institute Blog
