In Pictures: Data Centre World UK 2024

Data Centre World UK opened its doors at London’s Excel Centre on March 6.

The event was part of Tech Show London and co-located with the Cloud & Cyber Security Expo, Big Data & AI World, and DevOps Live.

The event brought together a panel comprising Rabih Bashroush, Professor of Digital Infrastructure at the University of East London, Jason Liggins of Crown Hosting Data Centres, the European Space Agency’s Nigel Houghton; and Claudia Jaksch, CEO of Policy Connect, to dissect the challenges and opportunities in developing sustainable data center services.

When asked how easy it is for procurers to judge whether the data center services they are buying are sustainable, Houghton said: “It's extremely hard. When you've got a wealth of information in front of you, it can be very difficult sometimes to understand the validity… even the usefulness of some of the information.

“There are all sorts of standards and awards and organizations that come up from data centers… It's like a big game of data center whack-a-mole. Just when you understand what one certification means, another one comes up.”

Steven Carlini, Vice President of Innovation and Data Center at Schneider Electric, focused on one of the industry’s biggest growth drivers: AI.

While Carlini noted that AI was driving “unprecedented change” in the world, he highlighted the lack of understanding when it comes to the added strain LLMs are placing on data centers and power grids.

“When people talk about [AI], they tend to just [look at] the end results and talk about how it is going to transform everything – but it's not magic,” he said. “It’s actually dependent on data centers and network capacity.”

He added: “The data centers that we're building now are not large enough. They don't have the processing power, and there's not enough of them.”

As power constraints continue to impact markets around the world, Carlini said technology systems, including ‘peaker plants,’ grid storage, and SMRs may become increasingly important.

In addition to the key challenges relating to infrastructure, sustainability, and scalability that were highlighted at Data Centre World UK, the very real challenges of finding – and retaining – staff was also a hot topic.

In a packed theater this afternoon, Adelle Desouza, founder of HireHigher – which specializes in helping make the digital infrastructure a career destination of choice for young talent – explored the root causes behind the talent gap and its impact on data center operations.

“The topic of talent has dominated keynotes, podcasts, LinkedIn posts, and tweets for some time now, but we're struggling to see seismic change in this space,” Desouza said.

Desouza is pictured here with Stephen Bowes-Phipps of State Street Bank and Advisor to the Board at the Data Centre Alliance.

Direct-to-chip cooling was a recurring theme at Data Centre World, both during the conference sessions and on the expo floor.

A panel of European data center specialists featured Pim Kokke, Policy Officer at the Dutch Data Center Association, Cihan Herguner, Global Strategic Account Executive for Data Centers at Johnson Controls, Arup director Michiel Verkroost, and Freek van Alphen, Head of Data Center Solutions at ABB.

The panel discussed the importance of designing and building sustainable facilities, along with facilities that can be integrated into the urban environment, and how to increase the general public awareness of the data center industry.

Cliff Grossner, Chief Innovation Officer at the Open Compute Project Foundation, chaired a discussion of best practices for cooling and powering large-scale AI clusters.

The panel included Jakob Jul Jensen, Head of Data Center Solutions at Danfoss; Lukas Sebastian Kaluza, Commercial Development & Strategy Lead for BP/Castrol; Matthew Baynes, Vice President, Design & Construction Partners, Cloud & Service Provider Segment, Schneider Electric; and Hassan Moezzi, VP of sales for Cadence.

The bustling show floor at London's Excel Centre hosted over 200 exhibitors and attracted thousands of industry professionals for Data Centre World UK.

The bustling show floor at London's Excel Centre hosted over 200 exhibitors and attracted thousands of industry professionals for Data Centre World UK.