Hyperscale operators made the biggest headlines in 2022 on Data Center Frontier, as Meta, Microsoft and Google featured in 5 of the 10 most-popular stories with our readers.
The enormous scale of data center campuses - and the accompanying investment - was a key theme in several of our most-read articles, So was data center cooling, particularly efforts by Meta to save energy and water by optimizing its cooling infrastructure. The pace of mega-mergers slowed a bit from 2021, with the sale of Switch topping the deal talk at $11 billion. On the finance front, readers were engaged with our coverage of the "short call" by investor Jim Chanos.
Here are the 10 most popular stories on Data Center Frontier in 2022, ranked by page views:
Microsoft Plans $1 Billion Campus in North Carolina Cloud Cluster: Microsoft will invest more than $1 billion to build data center campuses at three sites in Catawba County in North Carolina, joining Google, Apple and Facebook in a cloud cluster west of Charlotte.
The Eight Trends That Will Shape the Data Center Industry in 2022: The overarching theme is dealing with the challenges of growth and the data center industry’s vital role in a digital society.
DigitalBridge to Buy Switch for $11 Billion as Data Center M&A Binge Continues: Data center developer Switch will be acquired by DigitalBridge and infrastructure investors IFM and taken private in an all cash deal valued at about $11 billion. The deal continues a trend in which public data center REITs have been bought by large investors and taken private.
Meta Plans Shift to Liquid Cooling for its Data Center Infrastructure: The massive Meta data centers to support the metaverse will feature lots of liquid cooling. At the Open Compute Summit, Meta outlined a roadmap for a gradual shift to a water-cooled infrastructure, using cold plates to provide direct-to-chip cooling for AI workloads.
Incident at Google Data Center Highlights Risks of Arc Flash: The importance of electrical safety in data centers has been reinforced by an incident at a Google data center in which three workers were injured. It’s a reminder that even the most professionally run data centers must stay vigilant about worker safety related to arc flash, a type of electrical explosion.
The New MegaCampuses: The World’s Largest Data Center Projects: Sorting out the largest data centers is a tricky task. But the trend toward larger campuses is undeniable, so we’ve sought to quantify the largest projects in the pipeline, as well as highlight some projects that don’t share details about their scale.
Meta Running Server Rooms at 90 Degrees to Slash Water Impact As it seeks to become a water-positive company, Meta is slashing the water use of its data centers by running its servers in warmer and drier environments, saving millions of gallons of water.
Former AOL Headquarters in Ashburn Will Become a Data Center Campus: It will be converted into a large data center campus by its new owners, American Real Estate Partners (AREP) and Harrison Street, who are investing $1 billion to expand in Data Center Alley.
The Big Short and The Data Center Sector: What History Tells Us: The data center industry has been buzzing about investor Jim Chanos’ prediction that public data center companies are headed for a selloff. Here’s a look at the history of high-profile investors who have urged investors to sell or short the data center sector.
Data Center of the Future: Equinix Test-Drives New Power, Cooling Solutions: Equinix has created a Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) in Ashburn where it operates liquid-cooled servers supported by fuel cells, sodium-ion batteries and intelligent power management. The facility is part of Equinix’s Data Center of the Future initiative to test-drive new technology.
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