The Top 10 Data Center Stories of January 2021

Our Data Center Frontier 2021 forecast was popular with our readers in January, but there was also strong interest in data on the record cloud leasing in 2020, land deals in the Virginia market, and a flurry of news about sustainability and climate strategy.

Here are the 10 most popular stories on Data Center Frontier in January 2021, in order of article views:

• The Eight Trends That Will Shape the Data Center Industry in 2021: What’s ahead for the data center industry? We’ve identified eight themes that will shape the data center business in 2021. The big themes: Pandemic response, sustainability and lots of M&A.
• The Colossal Future Cloud: Land Deals Hint at Even Larger Data Centers:The cloud needs more real estate. Hyperscale cloud operators are aggressively acquiring real estate, Recent transactions, like Microsoft’s purchase of 900 acres in Virginia, suggest that some of these server cities will reach colossal scale.
• Data Center Operators Look to Cooling Strategies for Greater Efficiency: A closer look at data center cooling strategies, including tips on balancing power efficiency and water usage — a process that is unique to each data center and is affected by continual technology change.
• American Real Estate Acquires Site in Ashburn’s Data Center Alley: American Real Estate Partners (AREP) has teamed with investor Harrison Street to acquire a piece of prime real estate in Ashburn’s “Data Center Alley” where it plans to build a 265,000 square foot data center.
• Data Center Leasing Approached 700 Megawatts in 2020: Data center customers leased nearly 700 megawatts of IT capacity in 2020, according to a new report from North American Data Centers. That doubled the prior record from 2018, as the COVID-19 pandemic created extraordinary demand.
• The Sustainability Imperative: Green Data Centers And Our Cloudy Future: The data center industry can be a catalyst for action on climate change, advancing sustainability and adoption of renewable energy. Customers are demanding it, and the planet needs it. A Data Center Frontier Special Report series.
• Echelon Sees Green in Wind-Powered Irish Data Center Project: Echelon Data Centres is bringing integrated renewable energy to its new wind-powered data center project in the Dublin market, one of Europe’s most important cloud computing hubs.
• Tackling Data Center Water Usage Challenges Amid Historic Droughts, Wildfires: Data center water use has broad impacts. It affects the quality and availability of local water supplies, particularly when groundwater is involved. This special report series  examines data center water usage amid historic droughts and wildfires in California and beyond. .
• Dominion Plans More Green Power for Virginia’s Data Centers: Dominion Energy is developing more renewable energy for its power grid, a welcome development for tech companies seeking more green power for their data centers in Northern Virginia.
• The Power of the Negawatt: Efficiency Improves Data Centers’ Energy Impact: Cloud computing has emerged as a surprising force for sustainability, improving its energy efficiency while emerging as the largest buyers of renewable energy. A new DCF special report highlights the key role data centers are playing in sustainability..

Education is part of our mission at Data Center Frontier. In our Voices of the Industry feature, we share the experience of data center executives on the front lines of innovation. Here’s a look at the most popular Voices columns for DCF readers last month:

• How to Simplifu Distributed IT Management? Focus on the Tools to Improve Flexibility and Efficiency (Schneider Electric): Russell Senesac, Director of Data Center Strategy at Schneider Electric, explores how to address distributed IT management and the tools available today.
• Dataverse Growth Requires Sustainable Data Solutions (Echelon Data Centres): Damien Gaynor, Chief Marketing Officer from Echelon Data Centres, explores the dataverse and how its growth requires sustainable data solutions. .
• EOL & EOSL and Long-Term Hardware Infrastructure Strategy (Service Express): With close to 25 years of data center and IT expertise, Chad Peters of Service Express shares insights regarding the equipment life cycle and how IT leaders can better prepare their budget, strategy and future projects.

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