- Schneider Electric's Innovation Summit highlighted the need for scalable data centre architecture to meet future digital needs.
- Industry is key to supporting the sustainability transformations of data centres over the next five years.
- Meeting net zero targets requires greater transparency in data centre reporting.
Data centre sustainability and scalability are critical to meeting the pressing demands of an increasingly digital Australia, while also supporting its net zero carbon emissions targets.
Speaking at Schneider Electric's Australian Innovation Summit, Joe Craparotta, Vice President of IT Business, conveyed his insights on the data centre industry, why scalable data centre architecture is imperative for sustainable growth, and how some of Australia's biggest industries need to look years ahead now to be able to successfully support their business needs.
"The demands of data centres are going to change over the next five years and businesses need to take a more strategic approach to their data centre infrastructure and digital processes. We must future-proof this infrastructure and ensure that it meets future business needs, without compromising success today.
"During COVID-19, businesses focused on their immediate digital infrastructure requirements and stopped planning ahead, causing strain for these businesses. To be successful beyond 2023, it's essential that all organisations employ a digital-first strategy across all facets of their operations," said Mr Craparotta.
According to Mr Craparotta, there are three key areas that need priority to support growing infrastructure including architecture, sustainability, and responsibility.
Meeting the demand of digital lifestyles
The data centre sector is experiencing rapid growth and transformation in a bid to keep pace with Australia's increasingly digital lifestyles and more intelligent buildings. Mr Craparotta explained that: "Data centre architecture is incredibly important in supporting the demands of the intelligent buildings that are being constructed.
"Currently, Australia is at the forefront of the hybrid data technology architecture that will define the fourth industrial revolution and, in line with this, our data centre infrastructure needs to be both advanced and adaptive to handle today's business needs, while anticipating success factors for the future," adds Mr Craparotta.
"This also means that every site, irrespective of size, needs to be scalable according to demand. In the future, even smaller data centres will become battery energy storage centres, supporting energy transition targets."
Data centres move to become more sustainable
With rapid data centre growth across Australia, comes high power consumption and water usage. According to some estimates, data centre energy consumption alone represents 1-2% of global energy use.
"Sustainability is becoming a key marker of success for Australia's data centre. To support this transition we must have greater reporting transparency and consistent metrics for benchmarking and alignment across organisations.
"2023 brings another wave of large data centre builds in Australia and New Zealand, as well as acceleration of regional and local 'Edge'. Every rollout of this digital infrastructure presents another opportunity to reduce our carbon emissions, future proof digital infrastructure, and align with what Schneider Electric calls the "New Energy Landscape". The clock is ticking fast to make these changes in time to have maximum impact," said Mr Craparotta.
"We are continually working to drive consumption and thanks to the technologies and the architecture we're developing, and the work being done with our customers, data centres of the future are going to be highly resilient as well as energy-efficient," adds Craparotta.
Transformation is not a single entity's responsibility
For businesses to meet the individual ambitions and goals they have set themselves, there needs to be a partnership between those who produce and distribute the technology and those who employ the technology. The main driver being the fact that in enterprise and hyperscale data centres over 85% of the sustainability reduction resides in Scope 3 emissions.
"The combination of technology, power usage, and operational efficiency has an exponential impact on data centre sustainability. If we are going to meet net zero targets, the entire ecosystem needs to work together, and we are in a unique position to support this process end-to-end. Although it's a complex ecosystem, Schneider Electric has the tools and capability to make data centres more sustainable," concluded Craparotta.
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