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11.01.2022

8 Data Center facts you might not know

Kicking off a powerful 2022

It’s always exciting to kick off a new year, and 2022 seems like it will be a very exciting year for the Data Center industry. With it being ever clearer that our industry is in need of a wider workforce, we’ve put together 8 interesting facts about Data Centers that might spark some curiosity.

1 – There are over 8,000 Data Centers worldwide.

The Data Center industry is constantly growing and evolving. Will this number of Data Centers continue to grow or will we see a multi-industry shift to cloud services?

2 – Over 33% of the world’s Data Centers are based in the USA.

The USA has been widely recognised as a huge market for the Data Center industry, dominating in the fields of technology and innovation and being home to some of the largest Hyperscale facilities.

3 – The average Data Center consumes as much energy as 25,000 homes.

That’s the size of a small town! As such, the topics of sustainability and energy efficiency have spent a huge amount of time in the limelight.

4 – Data Centers generate 1,670 new jobs and $77.7M in earnings a year on average.

With the world going more and more towards digitalisation, emphasis is put on the requirement for a professional workforce in the Data Center industry. It all starts with education.

5 – Data Center equipment is renewed every 3 to 5 years.

Some larger companies have been known to have 18 month corporate lifecycles on their Data Center equipment! This can often result in a huge amount of waste being scrapped or sent to landfill. We provide the industry with a proactive method of being sustainable and contributing to Circular Economy by facilitating the sales of phased-out equipment.

6 – In a typical Data Center, only 40% of energy consumption goes towards computing. The rest is used mostly for cooling down the servers.

There is an inherent advantage to running a Data Center in a cooler climate, which will not only cut costs of cooling but is also a more sustainable option due to the lowered carbon footprint.

7 – The world’s largest Data Center, owned by China Telecom, is over 10M square feet in area.

The facility is designed to provide Cloud services amongst a range of others. It consumes a massive 150MW of power and cost over $3bn to develop!

8 – The Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral in Helsinki, Finland, is now the location of a Data Center, while historically being a bomb shelter during World War II.

The Data Center, owned by Finnish firm Academica, is built in granite caves of 30m and uses Baltic water to further cool it down. It also generates heating for approximately 500 local homes!

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Article by Bardiya Monzavi