Designing Flexible, Scalable Data Centers To Meet Growing AI Demand

Data center demand is rising faster than facilities can keep up. 

According to research from McKinsey & Co., global demand for data center capacity could rise at an annual rate of between 19% and 22% from 2023 to 2030 — and some evidence even suggests demand could rise by as much as 27%. To avoid a deficit, the report says, “at least twice the data center capacity built since 2000 would have to be built in less than a quarter of the time.” 

The rise of artificial intelligence is the biggest driver of this demand, placing increased pressure on data center operators and developers. 

“Both the design of data centers and the timeline in which they need to be delivered are changing,” said Rodney Willis, vice president of sales and sourcing for Align, which provides data center infrastructure solutions. “Everyone is saying, ‘Hurry up, hurry up.’ It is almost like we are the data center enablement pit crew, where both speed and accuracy are what’s required to operate in this environment.” 

Willis will be speaking at Bisnow’s National Data Center Construction, Design and Development — Central conference on Oct. 7 on a panel titled Building for AI and Advanced Tech Infrastructure: Understanding Key Differences in Scale, Engineering and Design. Register here for the event. 

Bisnow spoke with Willis about AI-ready design for data centers and the future of mission-critical facilities. 

Changing Design And Schedule Demands 

Willis said data center design is changing dramatically in response to these increased demands. Two years ago, operators were afraid to even let someone have a water bottle in a data center. Today, facility developers are planning for the implementation of water loops, pushing hundreds of gallons per minute for liquid cooling. Developers are also working to fit cabinets for high-performance computing and graphics processing unit servers into legacy spaces not ideal to support that kind of load.

“Before, we had a logical system where first you would install each subsystem in a routing and cadence,” Willis said. “Now, this is all happening at the same time, and all of this trade stacking means we have to ensure that people are working together safely while simultaneously deploying at this hyperfast speed.” 

Planning Ahead

Willis said the main challenge for data center developers and operators is planning for an unknowable future. These stakeholders are trying to build a 30-year asset without knowing what the next evolution of GPUs, language processing units and central processing units will require, or the generation after that, which makes it very hard to build effectively and maintain cost control. 

“In the past, data center designers would just build the data center shell and try to Tetris everything inside and downstream,” he said. “Now, it’s about purpose-building the data center to support at least two, three generations of GPU utilization and then being able to have something flexible enough to support what's coming in the future.”

He said that developers and operators are often so focused on the power and cooling aspects of data centers that they overlook another important detail that needs to be accounted for in facility design: fiber-optic cabling. 

“Many people come from a power background or a cooling background, but there's also a lot of low-voltage infrastructure in the network architecture side that needs to be addressed,” he said. “This is especially important as we get into things that modern facilities require, such as fiber shuffle boxes.” 

Building Scalable Assets

In response to these challenges, Willis said that Align’s strategy for its data center clients is to focus on the inside of the facility first and build out, rather than looking from the outside in. He said the company’s focus is on ensuring the customer is aware of all the intricacies required to build a facility that is ready for AI, and implementing those requirements into the design plans. 

“After 39 years in the IT space, we understand the intricacies of the compute aspect, the switching aspect, basically the full network architecture of data centers,” he said. “We're looking from the inside out to try to bridge the gap between having a real estate conversation about the basics of building a facility and having a conversation about the actual requirements needed at the rack level.” 

Spreading The Word 

Willis said he was inspired to speak at Bisnow’s National Data Center Construction, Design and Development — Central conference after being encouraged to attend by fellow thought leaders and peers within the industry and seeing the other thought leaders who would be attending. He said he looks forward to connecting not only with those in the data center design world who share his views but also, more importantly, those with different opinions. 

“No one has a crystal ball, so no one knows exactly where the data center industry is heading,” he said. “And if anyone tells you they do, my advice would be to run.” 

This article was produced in collaboration between Align and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.