The Data Center Frontier Executive Roundtable features insights from industry executives with lengthy experience in the data center industry. Here’s a look at the insights from Steve Zielke, Marketing Manager - Global Channel Distribution & Data Centers at Rehlko.
Steve Zielke is a seasoned marketing manager who excels at driving growth through product, brand, and merchandising strategies in multiple channels of distribution. His broad experience base includes wholesale distribution, retail 'big box' category management, and new product development, in both manufacturing and service businesses. Steve is a team leader with excellent strategy development, financial analysis and presentation skills.
Data Center Frontier: As we close out the Fourth Quarter of 2024, how do you see regulatory and public pressures shaping the data center industry's ambitions vs. its realities?
Steve Zielke, Rehlko: It’s important to realize that the public and the government aren’t the enemies of data centers — they are the people we serve. They are our stakeholders, our business communities, and ultimately our end-users. More than that, though, they are our neighbors, our friends, our families, our colleagues, and their needs and wants are just as valid as ours are.
Personally I’m encouraged by Federal and State engagement in the growth of digital infrastructure over the last few years, as it will help shed light on the value of our industry. I’m also encouraged by a plethora of community engagement case studies that I have read lately, and I’m especially excited about the developing iMasons Social Accord.
Data Center Frontier: To what degree is data center site selection the North Star for construction and development stakeholders in terms of guiding decisions on power and cooling infrastructure?
Steve Zielke, Rehlko: Talking about power infrastructure can be tricky in this regard.
A data center’s geographic location is increasingly becoming the most important aspect of a facility’s power and cooling solution, but for backup power the opposite is the case.
It’s never been easier to achieve incredible resiliency from an array of backup power sources, no matter where your data center is located.
While utility grid supply is becoming less available and less stable, backup power supply is only getting stronger in terms of performance, support, and sustainability.
Data Center Frontier: What are the most pivotal sustainability considerations and actions for colocation and hyperscale data centers headed into 2025?
Steve Zielke, Rehlko: One very significant and influential trend that isn't discussed enough is Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). While they are incredibly useful for Scope 3 benchmarking, supply chain management, and even marketing strategy, EPDs simply aren’t common among data centers, their suppliers, or their equipment.
Environmental product declarations are important for two reasons. First, they offer standardization. EPDs are governed by strict standards and regulations, where product category rules issue comparable results because the calculation methods and reporting guidelines are the same. Through an EPD, a data center gains the assurance of information accuracy, enabling informed, confident choices when selecting a vendor.
The second reason EPDs are so valuable for data centers is the transparency they provide. No EPD can be created without a full lifecycle analysis. As a result, the EPD shows a data center operator what goes into a piece of equipment, how it's produced, and the environmental footprint related to every stage of production.
Data Center Frontier: From your perspective, how is the massive build-out of AI infrastructure and its associated power demand impacting prospects for future data center investment and planning?
Steve Zielke, Rehlko: The onset of AI infrastructure is lengthening the data center investment and planning horizon.
The growth conversations need to start with the source of the industry’s energy as developers need to explore the build-out of varied types of infrastructure to modernize our power grid and create more capacity, and resiliency, within the system.
Aside from grid power, AI’s growth is extending the planning horizon for all data center components, forcing longer-term purchasing commitments and unique purchasing terms.
For example, we are beginning to establish a base of orders into 2028.
Matt Vincent
A B2B technology journalist and editor with more than two decades of experience, Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier.
