Data centers need to be more sustainable, but finding consistent and powerful energy resources can be a challenge. Increasingly, we are seeing nuclear entering the conversation, in the form of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). But these aren't without their own controversies. In this episode, we talk with Compass Datacenters' Tony Grayson to discuss the future of SMRs, the challenges and opportunities, and the role we can expect them to play in the world of data centers.

Artificial intelligence could grow from almost nothing to using half a percent of the world's electrical power within five years, according to Alex de Vries of Digiconomist. That's a crazy rate of growth, but it's not unprecedented. Bitcoin followed almost exactly the same trajectory, expanding from nothing to a sector whose energy use is comparable with that of regular data centers. But the similarities end there, says de Vries, who provided the reliable tracking data for the growth of...

We talk to Bill Kleyman, now at machine learning company Neu.ro, about his lengthy data center career. How did he get into the sector, what did he learn at Switch, and how does he balance life and travel? Tune in to find out.

Data centers have outgrown their anonymity. They are large enough consumers of energy and space, that they have to enter the political landscape and justify their existence. But how do we know if a data really brings benefits to its location? In some places (like London), it appears that they soak up grid connection capacity and block housing projects. In others (like Denmark and Ireland) they use renewable energy and jeopardize local decarbonization targets.  It's not easy to know the net...

Ever wondered about the practical challenges of connecting our continents? In this podcast episode, we talk with Exa Infrastructure's Elena Badiola about the process of getting subsea cables underwater: from environmental surveys to climate change, to funding challenges. Elena also shares her experience of living on a cable ship for five weeks after an earthquake caused an outage - and how a military coup almost stopped her from getting back home.

In 2022, Mark Monroe's podcast about hydrogen was one of our most popular podcasts ever. At Microsoft, Mark had just made a prototype hydrogen fuel cell UPS system that could potentially replace diesel generators to provide low-carbon backup power at data centers. One year on, he's back for some more detail. A hydrogen economy will need a distribution system - but will that look like a power network, a gas grid, or a system of trucks?  Data centers won't be the first big users of...

If you want to make infrastructure sustainable, you need to be very careful what words you use. That's what Hunter Vaughan and Nicole Starosielski found, through their involvement in a project to make subsea cables sustainable. Words like "sustainability" and "climate neutral" can mean different things, depending on who is talking. And if what you say is vague, then your efforts to be sustainable can get misdirected, or diverted into greenwash, or simply end up (like the words)...

If you think transitioning the tech sector to net zero is all about renewable energy and heat reuse, think again. Small changes in software could make entire data centers redundant - for a much bigger saving for the planet.  Green Software is not just about more efficient code, says Anne Currie. Rewriting everything in C might cut energy use - but it would destroy your company.   As a leader in the Green Software Foundation, and a seasoned green developer and entrepreneur, Anne has much...

How does the Internet keep running? A close-knit community of engineers has been developing and supporting the protocols that support it for more than forty years. During that time, new Internet services have emerged and scaled beyond recognition, and new features have been added, all without breaking the whole system.  Mirjam Kuhne has been closely involved with this for 20 years, and in 2020 became chair of the European forum for Internet development -  RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens, French...

The global interests of the mobile industry are represented by the GSM Association (GSMA).  This governing body was established in 1995 to support mobile operators using the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard for cellular networks.  It has become synonymous with the mobile industry and has driven it forward through industry programs, working groups, and initiatives.  The GSMA’s legacy has even inspired something similar but for broadband instead, with Martin Creaner,...

Quantum computing is still pretty mysterious, but data center operators have real questions: when will they need installation and support? And how much cooling will they need? Chris Monroe, chief scientist at IonQ, gives us the answers, along with plenty of other solid facts about an emerging technology that can seem as illusory as Schrodinger's cat.  It turns out that quantum computing is reaching a point where lots of us could soon start to use it. The market may have to choose from an...

There has been an ongoing issue with the representation of women in the tech industry, but why? In this episode, we talk to Kelley Mullick about her career to date, the factors that have helped her get to where she is, and the importance of supporting and empowering women to pursue these careers so they can find confidence within themselves. We also talk a little about her recent job change from Intel to vice president of technology advancement and alliances at Iceotope - what drew her to...

Having trouble finding a location for your data center project? This DCD podcast could have the answer. Build underground.  Andrew Bourget of Swiss engineering firm Eccus has a design for a 2MW data center built in an underground tunnel - and he can dig that tunnel wherever you want it, even under existing buildings.  The way he tells it, tunneling is the future. There's no planning permission required, and you can build under your existing facility. You can migrate underground, and still...

In March this year, a swimming pool in Devon, UK, was the unlikely setting for the most widely covered data center story (so far) of 2023.  A small immersion-cooled high-performance computing module from Deep Green is giving its heat to the swimming pool, saving Exmouth Leisure Centres £20,000 ($24,000) per year. It's not the first time data center waste heat has been harnessed. It's not even the first time it has heated a swimming pool. But Deep Green CEO Mark Bjornsgaard tells us that,...

Cloud gaming was heralded as the future of games, and was set to become a major data center workload. Now, after the death of Google Stadia and layoffs at Amazon's Luna, what's left for data center gaming? We catch up with Omdia's George Jijiashvili to discuss all things gaming, as well as VR, AR, and a dash of the metaverse.

As 2030 approaches, the pressure on data centers to meet their carbon pledges continues to increase. This, compounded with the challenge of energy supply insecurity and rising costs, is driving data centers to look to new methods of powering their operations, which has triggered nuclear power to come to the fore. However, as a result of historical disasters as well as the upfront costs, there is hesitancy in the data center industry to make the move to nuclear. This podcast will take a deep...

As data center demands grow, hyperscalers are building out vast networks that will help define the future of how infrastructure is interconnected. In the latest episode of the DCD Zero Downtime podcast, we connect with Juniper Networks' group vice president of cloud-ready data center, Mike Bushong, to discuss what this means, and what we should expect next. Plus we discuss AI, silicon photonics, telecoms, the race to 800G, and more.

Recently there’s been a number of mobile operators switching off their 3G networks around the world, or scheduling to phase out this old technology. 2G has also been spoken about at length, but has a slightly longer shelf-life than 3G, as it provides a backbone that still supports the IoT industry today. But what does any of this mean, and why does it matter? Well, Wireless Logic Group Chief Product Officer Paul Bullock explains why the need to switch off 3G is necessary for the future of...

As land and power in Virginia's Loudoun County become increasingly scarce, data center developers are seeking fresh ground on which build. While many are moving south within Virginia to the likes of Prince William County, Quantum Loophole is hoping to lure companies north into Maryland. A former aluminum smelting works, the company's maiden campus is reportedly luring cloud companies and the hyperscale developers serving them on a huge scale. CEO Josh Snowhorn talks us through the company's...

Hunter Newby doesn't claim to have invented the Meet-Me Room, but he created one of the first, in the iconic and historical Manhattan facility, 60 Hudson Street, in about 1998 At the time data centers had separate connections from multiple carriers, and linking between those carriers meant running a link between their connection points - and paying them heavily. Hunter set up a room where the networks all met up for physical (layer 0) connections - and the rest is history. It's a...

Join us for an extended discussion with CTO and founder of North American Access Technologies Julius Neudorfer about the history of liquid cooling, and where he sees the market developing in the future.

Formed by DigitalBridge and Liberty Global, AtlasEdge has quickly become one of the Edge industry's largest players. We chat to COO Zahl Limbuwala about how it defines the Edge and where it places its servers.

For years, operators have been trying to make their data centers more efficient by optimizing the cooling and power distribution in the facility - and have more or less ignored the IT equipment in the racks. PUE - the most popular data center metric - simply optimized the ancillary equipment, trying to approach a "perfect" figure of 1.0, where all the power goes into the rack. But what if you could measure the power used by your IT equipment, run comparative tests, and find out how to...

In this episode, we talk to Cloudflare's CTO John Graham-Cumming about how to respond to an outage at your company. We also discuss why the company bans the use of the word "Edge," and talk about the company's 'Supercloud.'

Can light be used to compute? We talk to Nick Harris, CEO of chip startup Lightmatter, about how the company hopes to harness photons for AI computing and as a data center interconnect.