There are already over 10,000 data centre locations worldwide , and they consumed 7.4GW of power in 2023 – a 55 % increase from the 4.9GW in 2022 . The first half of 2023 saw the largest amount of data centre construction in history in primary markets , and Statista reports that global spending on data centre systems hit a record high of US $ 259 billion .

While helping to drive our increasingly connected world , data centre expansion also presents key challenges that include :

Christian Uremovic , Senior Director , Solution Marketing , Infinera

As we inch asymptotically closer to the Shannon limit – or upper bounds – on spectral efficiency ( bits / Hz ), operators are looking for new ways to increase capacities on their existing fibre pairs . Christian Uremovic , Senior Director , Solution Marketing , Infinera , shares how data centre interconnectivity is affected by growing AI demands .

• Scalability : how do we scale and interconnect data centres more efficiently ?

• Security : how do we ensure secure operations and data protection ?

• Resiliency : how do we avoid failures and implement protection and restoration mechanisms when they do occur ?

• Efficiency : how can we improve power efficiency and reduce power consumption while supporting growth in computation , storage and transport demands ?

While each of these challenges deserves thoughtful consideration , we ’ ll focus on enabling scalable data centre connectivity throughout the remainder of this article .

68 www . intelligentdatacentres . com