Data centers and energy
🏢 Data Centers: Types, Purposes and How They Work
Follow a phone tap to a server and back, tell the kinds of data centers apart, and read the power, cooling, efficiency, siting and outage numbers that come up when one is proposed near you.
- 1What a Data Center Is and What It DoesFollow one phone tap out to a server and back, and learn why the internet needs buildings full of computers, power gear and cooling.14 min
- 2The Types of Data Centers, Side by SideTell enterprise, colocation, hyperscale, cloud region, edge, AI, HPC, crypto mining and modular facilities apart by size, owner, purpose and power profile.16 min
- 3Who Builds Data Centers, and Why NowMeet the hyperscalers, developers, REITs, utilities and investors behind data centers, and read the 2023 to 2026 AI buildout in real dollars and megawatts.15 min
- 4Inside the Building: White Space, Racks, Servers and GPUsWalk the floor of a data center, learn what racks, servers, GPUs, storage and network gear do, and see why rack power has jumped from about 5 to 10 kW to well over 100 kW.15 min
- 5Power Systems: From the Substation to the ServerFollow electricity from the utility line through substations, switchgear, UPS, batteries and generators, and learn what N, N+1, 2N and Uptime Tiers I to IV promise.17 min
- 6Cooling: Air, Water and Liquid to the ChipLearn how data centers move heat out of the building, from hot and cold aisles to evaporative coolers, chilled water, direct-to-chip liquid and immersion, and what each costs in water and power.17 min
- 7Efficiency Metrics: PUE, WUE and CUECalculate PUE, WUE and CUE from real-looking numbers, know the typical ranges and who reports them, and spot the ways each metric can mislead.16 min
- 8Site Selection, Construction and JobsSee how developers score sites on power, fiber, water, land, taxes, latency, climate and disaster risk, how long a build takes, and how many people work there during and after construction.17 min
- 9Security, Reliability and Why Outages HappenLearn the layers of physical security around a data center, what the outage data says about causes and costs, and how to read an outage account without guessing.15 min