Undoubtedly, in the digital economy era, data has become the fifth type of production factor. As the key infrastructure carrying the value of data, data centers are not only critical for the development of the national economy but also serve as the "new infrastructure" for the digital transformation of various industries.
With the support of data centers, digital capabilities are rapidly entering every industrial application scenario. In internet scenarios, data processing and analysis become more efficient; in manufacturing, AI assists in optimizing manufacturing models and cycles; in healthcare, AI contributes to the potential cure of certain cancers; in scientific research, it can predict severe weather conditions, among others.
As a result, data centers, which support computing power and data, are growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 30%, as predicted by iResearch. This growth has accelerated even further since the rise of AIGC and large models this year, driving the development of the data center industry. However, the data tsunami driven by AIGC demands places higher requirements on the operation, networking, storage, and security management efficiency of data center infrastructure.
Against this backdrop, as the China platform for the global hyper-scale data center EdgeConneX, Chayora continues to invest and develop in China, operating cutting-edge hyper-scale data center campuses. Recently, they launched the timely Ingenuity high-density data center solution, aiming to build a new generation of data centers under the AIGC wave. This will drive and ensure future data center infrastructure needs for more enterprises, helping AIGC integrate into various industries and propelling China’s digital economy into a new phase of high-quality development.
In the AIGC era, we are on the brink of a new generation of data centersThe Challenge of Data Centers in the AIGC Era
Entering 2023, the explosion of AIGC is pushing the world into a new era—the era of large models. This not only leads to an overall upgrade of the AI industry but also brings about various large models. The core reason behind this is the universal enhancement of productivity by large models, and many companies in the industry are actively seeking opportunities to apply these models and generative AI, hoping to make strides in the industrial sector.
According to iResearch, AIGC technology, as a new content production method, will drive a productivity revolution by transforming content production models, leading industrial transformation in the wave of digital-physical integration. It will deeply affect people's production and lifestyles, opening a new era of human production interaction. The Chinese AIGC industry is expected to reach RMB 14.3 billion in 2023, with the potential to surpass RMB 1 trillion by 2030.
The massive computing power demands created by AIGC have further pressured the already imbalanced supply and demand structure of the computing power industry, posing new challenges for data center infrastructure. In response to this trend, Chayora, as a player in the data center field and a participant in the AIGC era, has conducted market research and held in-depth discussions with industry experts and upstream and downstream enterprises to explore data center solutions that meet current market needs. The data center industry is undergoing a transformation driven by AI technologies, with new requirements for power density, cooling, operations, and maintenance in the AIGC era.
Indeed, we can observe the new challenges brought to the data center industry by the AIGC explosion from the following aspects:
The rise of AIGC and large models creates greater demands for computing power, requiring more significant computing resources to support AIGC's development. The emergence of large AI models is revolutionary; both model training and inference require vast amounts of computing power. As the number of parameters in large models increases in the AIGC era, the supply-demand imbalance for computing power continues to intensify. The need for computing power will continue to grow exponentially, especially as future demand for edge and endpoint computing is released. Moreover, the training and inference of pre-trained large models require massive data resources and the continuous, high-speed operation of high-performance computers. This places higher demands on the data center’s network bandwidth, energy consumption, and cooling capacity, as well as the memory, bandwidth, and interconnect capabilities of AI chips, and the coordination between hardware and software.
The existing operation and maintenance models of data centers face new transformations to adapt to AIGC's development needs. Operations and maintenance (O&M) are the most critical tasks in the lifecycle management of data centers. On one hand, as the amount of O&M data increases, intelligent O&M, represented by AIOps, is emerging. It integrates with monitoring, service desks, and automation systems, enabling data extraction from various systems and service-oriented decision-making, which has become a new trend. On the other hand, O&M and security are increasingly merging, with privacy data, transaction data, and behavioral data of individuals being incorporated into daily O&M processes. In addition, from an operational perspective, aspects such as construction plans for next-generation data centers, energy usage, layout planning, and technological innovation are also undergoing new changes.
Third, energy conservation and emission reduction are also major challenges facing data centers. As large consumers of energy, data centers have long faced enormous energy consumption challenges in their construction and development. According to data from the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, over the past decade, the overall electricity consumption of data centers in China has increased by more than 10% annually. By 2020, data centers accounted for about 2.7% of China's total electricity usage, and it is estimated that by 2024, data center electricity consumption will exceed 5% of the national total. Therefore, under the national "carbon peak and neutrality initiative" strategy, the data center industry must aim to reduce carbon emissions, moving toward a low-carbon, green development phase. This shift will support the transition of various industries towards "low-carbon" and high-quality development through innovation.
Assisting in the Iterative Evolution of Next-Generation Data Centers
Recognizing these market changes, Chayora, as a provider of ultra-large-scale data center infrastructure, has applied over ten years of experience in building and operating large-scale data center campuses in China. After conducting a comprehensive market survey, Chayora has actively laid out and innovated in the market. This has not only promoted the iteration and evolution of next-generation data centers in the AIGC (AI-generated content) era but also accelerated the rapid implementation of AIGC in China.
First, to address the surging demand for computing power, high-density development will be the direction for future data centers to cope with the explosive growth in demand. A data center campus should focus on the workload it can support rather than just the number of cabinets or the size of the area. To this end, Chayora has introduced the Ingenuity high-density data center solution, which provides up to 40KW of power per rack, effectively supporting large-scale model training, inference, and data computation.
Chayora’s Ingenuity solution has several key features: robust scalability to meet the fast-growing data and computing needs of AI applications; higher rack power density to enable high-performance computing and data processing to support complex AI algorithms and model training; efficient operational plans to quickly and flexibly respond to the specialized needs of enterprises; and highly intelligent management modes to help automate data center management and significantly improve operational efficiency.
Secondly, in terms of operation and maintenance management, Chayora's highly intelligent 360-degree centralized management system can improve operational efficiency by 15%, helping data centers identify and resolve issues before they become major problems. At the 11th Data Center Standards Conference, Chayora’s 360-degree centralized management system won the “2023 Data Center Achievement Award,” approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology's Office of National Science and Technology Awards. This recognition highlights the industry's and customers' acknowledgment of Chayora's products and services.
Third, in terms of operating models, Chayora consistently upholds a customer-centric philosophy, providing build-to-suit solutions for clients. From the design phase of data centers, Chayora maintains close communication with clients, offering a variety of build-to-suit solutions based on different requirements for scale, timeline, and systems. Chayora can provide solutions for specific modules or the entire data center, ensuring the quick and cost-effective delivery of even the most challenging data centers, thus maximizing the fulfillment of clients' evolving business needs.
Lastly, in terms of green energy efficiency, as the demand for intensive and high-performance computing applications grows, traditional air cooling becomes increasingly challenging in solving high-density data center heat dissipation issues. Liquid cooling technology, which offers higher heat dissipation efficiency and greater energy savings, is emerging as a crucial solution. Regarding future cooling technology trends, industry experts believe that in the short term, the direction of liquid cooling is still unclear. For instance, whether immersion cooling or direct-to-chip is more suitable for high-density data centers remains undecided. Industry standards for cooling technology also need to be established. Currently, there are several liquid cooling technologies on the market, with direct-to-chip , immersion, and spray liquid cooling being the most common methods. Each has its advantages. For example, cold plate and immersion cooling offer greater stability, while spray liquid cooling, being closer to the heat source, provides higher heat dissipation efficiency. However, regardless of the method, liquid cooling has already become a fast-growing sector in the AIGC era. In the absence of clear industry standards, various cooling methods are expected to coexist for a long time.
Based on this, Chayora’s data center infrastructure incorporates the latest wind and liquid cooling hybrid solutions, dynamically adjusting the proportion of air and liquid cooling based on client needs. This maintains high levels of heat dissipation efficiency, providing cooling solutions for cabinets with different power densities and supporting the transition to green, low-carbon data centers. This also provides strong support for the digital transformation of industries.
In conclusion, at the threshold of the AIGC era in the data center industry, Chayora is leveraging its best practices and experiences, along with continued innovation and investment, to further promote the evolution of the next-generation data center. This helps drive the data center industry into a new development phase.
Unlocking the "multiplier effect" of intelligent productivity
As we know, intelligentization has become a new driving force in China's industrial upgrading and enterprises' digital transformation. Especially with the far more diverse and rich online and offline ecosystems and scenarios in China compared to other countries, the structural differences in the Chinese economy, as well as the diverse application scenarios in different industries, offer enormous potential for innovation based on AIGC and other new technologies. Chayora’s forward-looking layout of data centers suited to the AIGC era not only helps enterprises realize their AIGC visions and create new value, but also lays the groundwork for AI to take root across industries.
First, Chayora can assist enterprises in rapidly expanding both domestic and international markets. Through the global strategic partner EdgeConneX’s platform , Chayora helps domestic clients quickly access over 50 popular markets in Asia Pacific and worldwide, including India and Malaysia. Leverage with Chayora’s data center solutions and services in China, this offers clients a more flexible and convenient choice for their specified business needs.
Chayora's Tianjin data center campus has received Uptime Institute Tier III certification for design, construction, and operations, and its continuous optimization of operational efficiency has resulted in an average annual PUE as low as 1.25. Additionally, the campus’ civil design considers electrical and mechanical solutions for high-power density deployments, offering customized solutions according to client needs, providing a valuable reference for next-generation data center construction.
Second, Chayora boasts rich operational experience and a professional international team. Its management team has extensive business experience in both global and Chinese markets, with exceptional capabilities in data center development, construction, and operations. Furthermore, Chayora's operations team comprises experts from global technology companies and public cloud giants, with 45% of the workforce being female. The team's diverse professional backgrounds and gender ratio reflect Chayora's inclusive corporate culture, which fosters diverse thinking rather than a singular mindset, ensuring more reliable and stable service for clients.
Thanks to this, Chayora has made significant strides in the Chinese market in recent years. Looking forward, beyond serving internet clients, Chayora’s high-density solutions can also support industries such as autonomous driving, scientific and medical research, manufacturing, and smart cities, driving the development of data centers in the AI era. This will contribute positively to China’s data center industry and digital economy.
As industry experts point out, the government is promoting the construction of a digital China through more top-level architecture. With strong national support, there are higher demands on infrastructure for data computing, storage, and networking. In this new environment, the construction and development of data centers face issues such as gaps in standards for IT equipment and network coordination. The establishment of these industry standards will require the collaboration of the government, industry organizations, data center operators like Chayora, and upstream and downstream enterprises.
In conclusion, the continuous iteration and evolution of new technologies will undoubtedly have a far-reaching impact, extending beyond the technology itself. It will influence business models, ways of thinking, and trigger a series of new commercial and technological innovation revolutions. In this process, Chayora will take an action-driven approach to assist in the evolution of the next generation of data centers, creating new industries, services, and models with great potential, making the AIGC wave accessible to all sectors.
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