[Shenzhen, China, May 6, 2022] Huawei held the Songshan Lake Talk on Next-Generation Data Center Facility to shed light on trends reshaping the future of the data center. The event was attended by more than 200 attendees including industry stakeholders, experts, consultants, and analysts, with featured discussions on the definition of next-generation data centers, innovations in power supply and cooling systems, and autonomous driving.
Data centers are at the heart of digital transformation. Skyrocketing demand for data is driving the expansion of data centers globally. Charles Yang, Senior Vice President of Huawei and CEO of Huawei Data Center Facility Business, said in his opening remarks that “Digitalization and decarbonization are the two major trends that drive the global development. With the booming digital economy and accelerated carbon neutrality efforts, the new-generation data centers should integrate state-of-the-art computing, communication, and energy technologies to go low-carbon with coordination between power generation, grid, load, and storage. Huawei will join hands with industry experts and partners to build a high-quality ‘green foundation’ for the digital economy.”
Charles Yang, Senior Vice President of Huawei and CEO of Huawei Data Center Facility Business
Topic 1: How to Define the Next-Generation Data Center
China has already launched the Eastern Data and Western Computing project to balance the distribution of computing power across the country's eastern and western regions. Dr. Li Jie, Deputy Director of the Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and vice chairman of Open Data Center Committee, said the new generation of data centers offer high energy efficiency, high security, technological advantages, and high computing power, advancing the innovations in computing power infrastructure and accelerating the achievement of China’s "Double Carbon" goals.
Dr. Li Jie, Deputy Director of Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Vice Chairman of Open Data Center Committee ODCC
"With the launch of the Eastern Data and Western Computing project, the layout of data centers in China will be further optimized," she added.
Industry experts at the event reached a consensus on key performance indicators for data centers of the future: In addition to the extensively used Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), other metrics, including Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE), Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), Space Usage Effectiveness (SUE), TTM (time to market), prefabricated rate, recoverable rate, Green Usage Effectiveness (GUE) and lower life-cycle pollutant emissions, will also affect the sustainable development of the industry.
Topic 2: Innovations in Power Supply and Cooling Systems
Speaking about the technology evolution of next-generation data centers, Dr. Fang Liangzhou, Vice President and CMO of Huawei Digital Power, noted that power supply and cooling systems are critical for data centers. The data center of tomorrow will feature a green power supply, efficient power consumption, the adoption of lithium-ion batteries and natural cooling sources, proximal cooling, and waste heat recovery.
Dr. Fang Liangzhou, Vice President and CMO of Huawei Digital Power
Experts believed that replacing lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion batteries is key for the next-generation data centers. When it comes to power supply systems, data centers can achieve efficient power supply by improving the voltage conversion efficiency in a simplified way. Regarding the cooling solutions, experts maintained that both the air-cooling and liquid cooling solutions will help the data centers of tomorrow to optimize PUE and WUE.
Topic 3: Intelligent Technologies for a Reliable, Secure Data Center
The arrival of the cloud data center era increases the demand for more reliable data centers, and intelligent technologies are key to protecting a data center from external threats and attacks. Experts said that as digital technology evolves, it will be further integrated with power supply and cooling systems to facilitate predictive maintenance, resulting in improved system reliability and maximized PUE.
Besides, through standardized management of systems and platforms, accurate analysis of data, and integrated evaluation, data center infrastructure management (DCIM) will serve as the brain of the digital infrastructure that reduces human involvement and makes autonomous driving become a reality.
Fei Zhenfu, CTO of Huawei Data Center Facility Business
Fei Zhenfu, CTO of Huawei Data Center Facility Business, concluded that looking ahead, Huawei will continue to make breakthroughs in data center facility solutions, join hands with partners, industry players, and standards organizations to build an open and win-win ecosystem and lead the data center industry toward a simple, green, smart, and secure development.
