Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
It's "$ per Density" for Data Centers in 2021
By Paul Wiener, Vice President of
Strategic Marketing, GaN Systems
We are witnessing a time period where
"exponential growth" and "going viral" is a routine part of many discussions.
Today, those terms are unfortunately connected with conversations around
COVID-19. However, "exponential growth" is also very relevant in the data
center market, attached to topics like data usage and video content. But with that
growth comes real concerns around resource usage like electricity and water, especially
given rising compliance requirements around energy efficiency. While ongoing
corporate sustainability efforts have focused on renewable energy and water
recycling, why not focus on the root cause, a producer of heat that requires
the water cooling and need for more electricity usage?
The winds of change will be sweeping
across data centers in 2021.
The perfect storm of increased infrastructure spending, new
regulatory policies requiring higher efficiency, and demands for increased power density inside the data center,
has brought the industry to an inflection point at a time when data centers
account for nearly 2% of the world's energy use and forecasted to increase.
With 44 zettabytes of data residing in our data centers
coming from 8 to 30 billion connected devices all over the world and about a
10% increase in data center growth expected in the next year, the need to
change data center economics through power supply design has never been more
apparent.
Based on these internal and external forces, GaN Systems
foresees the following predictions and trends taking shape in 2021:
- According to Gartner, one of the leading analyst research
firms, end user data center
infrastructure spending worldwide
will increase 6% to $200 billion in 2021, after a pandemic-driven decline in
2020. COVID-19 was responsible for putting a hold on 60% of planned
construction projects in 2020, which was directly tied to a 10.3% dip in data
center spending. Likewise, due to the pandemic, the global economy remains on
its way to its "digital destiny" as most products and services are now based on
a digital delivery model or require digital augmentation to remain competitive.
- The European Union's "Lot 9" 2023 regulatory policies focusing
on data center infrastructure as related to power supply and energy efficiency
requirements will have a significant impact on the future of data center power
supply design. Over the next year, GaN‘s major impact will be centered on
enabling new levels of combined efficiency and power density. A key power
supply cost metric in the industry will shift from "$ per Watt" to "$ per
Density" where density is a measure of size and power of the power supply. The
"$ per Density" metric will ultimately influence strategic data center
decisions and become a dominate figure-of-merit.
- The data center ecosystem will continue to evolve and become even more
critical for organizations. Infrastructure efficiency has been a huge concern
for many organizations. While 2020 was the year of substantial increase in GaN
power supply design efforts, we predict that 2021 will see significant
deployment of GaN in data centers.
-
In 2021, data center
operators will need increased power density inside their physical data center
infrastructure. Smaller power supplies using GaN technology allow for more
storage and memory to be added into the same rack space allowing for data
center capacity growth without actually having to build more data centers.
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About
the Author
Paul Wiener is GaN Systems' Vice President of Strategic
Marketing. Prior to joining GaN Systems, Paul led the power magnetics business
unit at Eaton. Paul brings more than 25 years' experience in operations, sales
and marketing, and business development. His experience includes vice president
of sales at Fultec Semiconductor Inc. and several management roles at Genoa,
BroadLogic, and Raychem. Paul earned his MBA from Golden Gate University and
his bachelor's degree in business from the University of California at
Berkeley.