HUAWEI DIGITAL POWER
“ This growth is supported by multiple billion-dollar investments from players like Microsoft , AWS , TikTok , Huawei and driven by investments by asset companies including BlackStone and KKR ,” Sanjay explains . The geographical distribution of this market is significant , with approximately 50 % in the United States and 27 % in the Asia-Pacific region , including China .
This surge in cloud and AI services is also driving a corresponding increase in power consumption . “ Power consumption in this space is expected to double from 55GW to 100GW in the next 4-5 years ,” says Sanjay .
Challenges in the new data centre era The rapid growth in data centre demand presents several interconnected challenges . Sanjay identifies three key areas that require innovative solutions :
The first is the issue of energy availability and carbon footprints . The deployment of large data centre campuses , some consuming hundreds of megawatts of power , is putting unprecedented strain on energy providers . “ Energy companies are finding it difficult to provide power to these data centre campuses ,” Sanjay notes . This challenge is compounded by the increasing pressure to generate renewable power to meet CO2 emission goals , driving up investments in green energy .
The next issue is rack density and cooling demand . The power density requirements of AI and machine learning workloads are pushing the limits of traditional data centre designs . “ Cloud infrastructure is averaging out at about 8-12KW per cabinet ,” Sanjay explains . “ However , AI / LLM training DCs using parallel processing compute start
“ Huawei has worked with hyperscalers to develop reference architectures to cater to the new requirements of liquid cooling in the data centres ”
SANJAY KUMAR SAINANI , GLOBAL CTO , HUAWEI DIGITAL POWER
178 December 2024