What are Data Centres
Centralised facilities that house computer servers and equipment / giant computer warehouses.

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Types of Data Centres

Modular

Brownfield

Hyperscalers (Google, Microsoft, Meta & Amazon)
AI-powered Green Data Centres

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Data Centre Tiers

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Statistics pertaining to Data Centres:

* 40% of the total energy consumed by a modern data centre is used for cooling

The Global Data Centre Industry to emit 2.5 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions globally through the end of the decade

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* Singapore requires Data Centres to have a PUE of at least 1.3 while the global average in 2022 was 1.5.

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As of January 2022, there were more than 70 operational data centres in Singapore, with four new data centres being approved in July 2023 (Straits Times)

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Data Centres are responsible for about 7% of total electricity consumption in 2020 (Ministry of Trade and Industry)

What are Colocation?

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What are White Sites?

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What are the Considerations when considering a Colocation Site?

Temperature: Data Centres typically maintains 22°C or lower temperatures to ensure that their IT equipment, particularly servers, operates efficiently and does not overheat.

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Power Usage Efficiency: Used to measure the energy efficiency of data centres.  Total Electricity Usage to the power consumed by the core IT Equipment The closer the PUE is to 1, the more efficient the data centre is as less energy goes into cooling.

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Data Centre Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE) measures effiiency.

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Energy Efficiency: 

 

Carbon capture, utilisation, and sequestration (CCUS) technology and carbon dioxide removal (CDR)

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For example, a rack-based solution that integrates the appropriate power solution with liquid cooling will enable you to extract the best compute performance while ensuring optimal energy efficiency and carbon emissions. Data centre operators also need to futureproof themselves by moving towards modular data centres, [which are more flexible than traditional data centres as they are formed by assembling individual modules designed and built separately],” adds Lee

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Types of Cooling Strategies/Methods:

Hot & Cold Aisle

 

Air Cooling: Most common and traditional method of cooling data centres. Use of Air Conditioning, Fans & Vents to circulate ambient air & expel hot air produced y computing equipment

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Liquid Cooling

Direct-to-chip and immersion cooling fall under the liquid cooling method, which is more effective than air cooling in drawing heat away from high-power density racks in data centres.

In direct-to-chip cooling, cold plates sit atop the heat-generating chips inside a server to draw away heat through single-phase cold plates or two-phase evaporation units. This approach can eliminate most of the heat the rack equipment generates, leaving the remaining heat to be removed by air-cooling systems.

Meanwhile, immersion cooling systems submerge servers and other rack components in a thermally conductive dielectric liquid or fluid. This maximises the liquid’s thermal transfer properties and eliminates the need for air cooling.

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A significant amount of water would need to be used, which may stress local water sources.

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Growing in popularity but rarely deployed on a large scale yet.

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