TECH & AI
The data centre sector is undergoing a dramatic transformation, propelled by the convergence of AI workloads, soaring demand for digital services and the imperative to operate more sustainably.
What was once a back-end industry now finds itself not only at the forefront of technology but also at the intersection of energy, policy and operational resilience.
Smart infrastructure – the seamless integration of digital controls, nextgeneration hardware, software and new forms of distributed energy – sits at the heart of the next chapter for data centres.
From legacy to smarter systems Traditional facilities, often reliant on air cooling and fragmented power systems, are fast becoming obsolete.
The relentless advance of AI is pushing rack densities beyond previous norms, with some systems now exceeding 100kW per rack, straining legacy power and cooling architectures.
According to JLL’ s 2025 Global Data Center Outlook:“ The data centre industry stands at the dawn of a transformative era, driven by the relentless advancement of artificial intelligence. This technological revolution is not merely evolving the digital infrastructure landscape, it is fundamentally redefining it.”
An AI training facility can now request as much as 1GW of power or more, consuming the same energy as hundreds of thousands of homes annually. Decoupling AI training and inference is changing site selection strategies, with facilities built near power sources for training and near population centres for inference – prioritising location and latency as never before.
The power problem and scaling up While AI is often viewed as the catalyst for this revolution, it is the underlying infrastructure’ s ability to support surging energy demand that is now centre stage.
132 November 2025