On May 17, 2024, the Global Data Center Facility Summit 2024 was held in Singapore with the theme of "Power the Digital Era Forward." At the summit, over 600 data center industry leaders, technical experts, and ecosystem partners gathered to discuss new trends and opportunities of the global data center industry in the intelligent computing era. The attendees also got to experience all-scenario, all-ecosystem, and all-service end-to-end (E2E) solutions, share innovative practices of green data centers in global, and experience the exhibition vehicle to unveil the mystery of Outdoor PowerPOD that features one power system per container. By fully embracing the intelligent computing era, Huawei strives to power the digital era forward.
Seizing Opportunities Brought by AI and Jointly Building Green & Reliable Computing Infrastructure
At the opening speech, Charles Yang, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Global Marketing, Sales and Services, Huawei Digital Power, noted that since ChatGPT ushered in the AI era, large models keep pushing the limits of computing power and the intelligent computing industry is witnessing an unprecedented construction boom. As predicted, 100 GW will be added to the global data center installed capacity and the market value will exceed US$600 billion in the next five years.
Charles Yang, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Global Marketing, Sales and Services, Huawei Digital Power
According to Charles, with opportunities come challenges. And the primary challenge concerning the data center industry is reliability and electricity. Reliability is the prerequisite for everything. In the intelligent computing era, data centers are scaling up from the MW-level, to the 100 MW-level, and on to the GW-level, and the impact scope of faults is proliferating from thousands to millions of users. E2E reliability of data centers is becoming even more important than ever. On top of that, the surge in energy consumption is a great concern, for electricity serves as the basis of computing power. From GPT-3 to GPT-4, the energy consumption of a training session increases from 11 million kWh to 110 million kWh, and the number is expected to grow further in the future.
In response to the opportunities brought by AI, Huawei, by making continuous innovations and solid investments to build new energy infrastructure for power systems, EVs, and digital industries, will work with customers and partners to expand the industry space, as part of its efforts to embrace the intelligent computing era.
Steering Data Centers to the AI Era with Product + Service + Ecosystem
During the summit, Sun Xiaofeng, President of Huawei Data Center Facility & Critical Power Business, delivered a keynote speech titled "Power the Digital Era Forward. " He stated that as AI large models are penetrating more and more industries, the surging compute demands drive the expansive growth in data center scale and quantity.
To address the challenges facing data centers in the intelligent computing era such as urgency with demands, higher power density, harder electricity acquisition and more critical for reliability, Huawei based on its global service system and ecosystem cooperation capabilities, strives to build product + service + ecosystem E2E data center solutions that feature fast deployment, flexible cooling, green energy, and ultimate reliability for creating a win-win future of intelligent computing .
Sun Xiaofeng, President of Huawei Data Center Facility & Critical Power Business
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Fast deployment: Data centers are fully modularized and prefabricated to ensure high quality and efficient construction. At the device layer, the modular design enables flexible capacity expansion. At the system layer, the decoupled architecture helps realize one power system per container. The system is pre-commissioned in the factory to facilitate high quality and fast delivery. At the data center layer, the time to market (TTM) is reduced by 50% through modularization, prefabrication, and productization.
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Flexible cooling: Air-liquid fusion and integrated cooling source emerges as the optimal cooling architecture for intelligent computing. High-density racks drive the liquid cooling application. The air-to-liquid ratio is adjustable to build a simplified and reliable cooling solution that adapts to the different cooling requirements of servers.
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Green energy: New generation-grid-load-storage integrated solution is built to ensure the sound operations of intelligent computing centers. As power shortage curtails the development of the data center industry, Huawei Smart PV+ESS and Grid Forming solutions increase grid integration of renewables by 40%, significantly reducing the energy costs of intelligent computing centers by generating more green computing power with less green energy.
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Ultimate reliability: Data centers are safeguarded through reliable products and preventive protection. The full-chain reliability concept is implemented throughout product design, test and certification, and manufacturing to ensure product reliability. The preventive protection ensures the reliability of key components and power supply links, and prevents short circuits in cells.
Currently, Huawei's global service network covers more than 170 countries with over 1800 professional engineers. With N+ flagship service centers, Huawei has built a one-hour service radius for its customers.
The ecosystem is a key part for a win-win future of intelligent computing. By leveraging each other's advantages, Huawei works with partners to develop comprehensive E2E solutions and provide customers with one-stop data center consulting, design, integrated development, and delivery services.
During the summit, Huawei and the ASEAN Centre for Energy released a white paper on "Building Next Generation Data Center Facility in ASEAN." The document provides insights into the status quo, challenges, and trends of data centers in the ASEAN region, and emphasizes that efficient and energy-saving products and solutions should be applied in data center design, development, and O&M. It also proposes future-oriented policy recommendations for mature and emerging data center markets, contributing to the sustainable development of the ASEAN data center industry.
ASEAN Centre for Energy and Huawei jointly releasing White Paper: Building Next Generation Data Center Facility in ASEAN
In the ecosystem exhibition area, Huawei showcased scenario-based solutions for large-, medium-, and small-sized data centers, and demonstrated data center consulting, design, integrated development, and delivery capabilities with dozens of ecosystem partners including CIMC, Weichai, CSCEC, and Huashi.
On a special note, the Huawei Outdoor PowerPOD exhibition vehicle made its global debut. The Huawei Outdoor PowerPOD features one power system per container, outdoor deployment, plug-and-play, and high protection rating and reliability. It reduces TTM from 24 weeks to 18 weeks and has become the preferred choice for decoupling the power supply architecture in the intelligent computing era.
A single tree cannot make a forest.
AI is presenting great opportunities. By delving into the industry, aggregating partner ecosystems, and making innovations applicable to transformations, Huawei will continue to help customers build reliable computing infrastructure, accelerating the industry to embrace AI and powering the digital era forward.
