The training of large generative AI models is a special case of high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. This is not simply due to the reliance on GPUs — numerous engineering and scientific research computations already use GPUs as standard. Neither is it about the power density or the liquid cooling of AI hardware, as large HPC […]
When it comes to generative AI models, the belief that bigger is better is an enduring one — shaping a wide array of high-stakes decisions from corporate investments to energy and permitting policy to technology export controls. A defining technical feature in the pursuit of ever-bigger models is denser compute hardware. This makes sense: as […]
An earlier Uptime Intelligence report discussed the characteristics of processor power management (known as C-states) and explained how they can reduce server energy consumption to make substantial contributions to the overall energy performance and sustainability of data center infrastructure (see Understanding how server power management works). During periods of low activity, such features can potentially […]
Uptime Intelligence regularly addresses IT infrastructure efficiency, particularly servers, in our reports on data center energy performance and sustainability. Without active contribution from IT operations, facility operations alone will not be able to meet future energy and sustainability demands on data center infrastructure. Purchases of renewable energy and renewable energy certificates will become increasingly — […]
The idea of using liquids to cool IT hardware, exemplified by technologies such as cold plates and immersion cooling, is frequently hailed as the ultimate solution to the data center’s energy efficiency and sustainability challenges. If a data center replaces air cooling with direct liquid cooling (DLC), chilled water systems can operate at higher supply […]
The suitability of a data center environment is primarily judged by its effect on the long-term health of IT hardware. Facility operators define their temperature and humidity set points with a view to balancing hardware failure rates against the associated capital and operational expenditures, with the former historically prioritized. Over the past decade, this balance […]
Regular readers of Uptime Institute’s annual data center survey, the longest running of its kind, already know that the industry average power usage effectiveness (PUE, a ratio of total site power and IT power) has trended sideways in recent years. Since 2020, it has been stuck in the 1.55 to 1.59 band. Even going back […]
Public cloud infrastructures have come a long way over the past 16 years to slowly earn the trust of enterprises in running their most important applications and storing sensitive data. In the Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey 2022, more than a third of enterprises that operate their own IT infrastructure said they also placed […]
Early in 2022, Uptime Intelligence observed that the return of Moore’s law in the data center (or, more accurately, the performance and energy efficiency gains associated with it) would come with major caveats (see Moore’s law resumes — but not for all). Next-generation server technologies’ potential to improve energy efficiency, Uptime Intelligence surmised at the […]
Data center operators and IT tenants have traditionally adopted a binary view of cooling performance: it either meets service level commitments, or it does not. The relationship is also coldly transactional: as long as sufficient volumes of air of the right temperature and quality (in accordance with service-level agreements that typically follow ASHRAE’s guidance) reach […]