“The data center sector is growing rapidly, as more and more applications require compute and storage, driving a rapid increase in energy and water use at data center facilities. The industry has realized that aggressively pursuing energy and water efficiency is critical to future success and survival,” said Giordano Albertazzi, Chief Operating Officer and President for the Americas at Vertiv. “ Increased regulations are inevitable and will lead to significant innovations in our sector. The process isn’t always easy or straightforward, but progress can be made with the help of expert data center partners and innovative solutions that can anticipate changes while meeting the ever-increasing requirements of data center applications.”

Advances in chip design and manufacturing that limited server power consumption during the first decade and a half of the 2000s have reached their limits in recent years; since then, we have witnessed a surge in the amount of energy servers use. In a recent report, Silicon Heatwave: The Looming Change in Data Center Climates, the Uptime Institute cited data from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) showing that server power consumption had increased by 266% since 2017. This dramatic increase is among the various technical and market factors driving the focus on environmental awareness and sustainability in several of the 2023 trends identified by Vertiv experts. These trends are:

Data centers face increasingly strict regulations

Increasing pressures to meet consumer demand for energy and water are forcing governments at all levels to take a closer look at data centers and their excessive consumption of these resources. Data centers are estimated to account for up to 3% of global electricity consumption , a figure projected to reach 4% by 2030. The average hyperscale facility consumes 20-50 MW per year; theoretically enough electricity to power up to 37,000 homes.

It's already happening in some places. Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore have taken steps to control energy use in data centers, and their water consumption, especially in drought-prone areas, is likely to trigger similar scrutiny. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the water use efficiency (WUE) of an average data center using evaporative cooling systems is 1.8 liters per kWh. That type of data center can consume 11 to 18 million liters of water per day— similar to the capacity used by a city of 30,000–50,000 people. The industry will continue to take self-regulation and moderation measures—such as a growing preference for environmentally friendly thermal designs—but increased regulatory oversight is expected in 2023.

Hyperscale data centers and others are betting on standardization

According to a recent Omdia survey, 99% of enterprise data center operators say that prefabricated and modular data center designs will be part of their future data center strategy. That's more than a trend; it's the new normal. In 2023, Vertiv experts anticipate continued shift in the same direction among hyperscale providers as they seek the speed and efficiency that standardization offers. 

This is a new concept for the world's leading cloud providers, and they are turning to colocation providers —who have been standardizing for years—to achieve it. Specifically, these cloud providers are outsourcing their new builds to colocation providers to leverage their market expertise, proven replicability, and speed of deployment. Before long, standardization—ranging from modular components like power and cooling modules to complete prefabricated installations—will become the default approach not only for the enterprise but also for hyperscale and edge computing.

Diesel generators face real competition

The diesel generator has long been an imperfect but unavoidable part of the data center ecosystem. It represents stored energy that largely goes unused and requires maintenance or refueling after periods of inactivity. Then, when they are brought into service, the generators produce carbon emissions that operators desperately try to avoid. Some organizations are already relying on batteries to support longer loads—up to five minutes in some cases—and are even designing their data centers with minimal generator capacity. 

These are transitional measures to minimize the role of the generator while the industry explores other options—including new battery technologies—to expand backup power. In 2023, Vertiv experts anticipate that a preferred alternative will emerge: hydrogen fuel cells. These fuel cells will initially function as a generator, providing momentary support to the load, and over time they show promise for sustained or even continuous operation.

Higher densities alter cooling strategies

After years of relatively static rack densities, data center operators are increasingly requesting higher-density cabinets. According to the Uptime Institute’s 2022 Global Data Center Survey, more than a third of data center operators say their rack density has increased rapidly over the past three years. This is especially true for large enterprise and hyperscale data centers, where nearly half of those operating 10 MW and larger facilities reported using cabinets with a capacity of more than 20 kW, and 20% reported using racks with a capacity of more than 40 kW. 

This coincides with the maturity of server liquid cooling technologies and their increasing acceptance and adoption. The aforementioned increases in server power consumption occur as the need to rapidly add capacity grows, posing a challenge for operators from all perspectives. This leaves them no choice but to explore the limits of existing facilities by adding computing in confined spaces, increasing rack density, and creating thermal profiles that require liquid cooling. While liquid cooling is not a new technology, the first wave of successful, efficient, and trouble-free deployments in high-density environments has provided proof of concept that will drive its adoption in the coming year. The integration of direct-to-chip cooling into the new OCP and Open19 standards will only accelerate this trend.

5G and the metaverse come together at the Edge

Omdia, in its 2022 Mobile Revenue and Subscription Forecast, projects that nearly half of all mobile subscriptions—more than 5.8 billion—will be 5G by 2027, bringing computing ever closer to the user. The metaverse is an application seeking an ultra-dense, low-latency computing network. In 2023, we will see these two activities intersect, with metaverse deployments leveraging 5G networks to enable the ultra-low latency characteristics the application demands. Ultimately, this will require more powerful computing in those 5G-enabled edge locations, and this will soon happen, with the first forays in 2023, followed by more widespread deployments in subsequent years. As the network edge becomes more sophisticated, so too will the infrastructure needed to support it. This will include technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality planning and management systems, as well as greater adoption of lithium-ion UPSs at the grid edge, an ongoing trend that saw its share increase from 2% of sales in August 2021 to 8% in August 2022, according to IDC.

“In recent years, sustainability has been the biggest focus for the data center industry, and this aligns with the trend in 2023 of increased regulation from public authorities, as well as the growing interest in alternative energy sources,” said Karsten Winther, President of Vertiv for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). “ As we move forward, data center owners and operators will need to choose an infrastructure solutions partner capable of advising them on best practices and technologies to help them achieve their net-zero emissions goals. With further innovation and transformation in the sector, especially in 5G and the metaverse, 2023 will be an exciting year for our customers and the industry as a whole.”