The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) applications and workloads has led to a massive increase in rack power densities in modern data centers. This poses a unique challenge for the industry, especially as data centers are beginning to prioritize sustainability initiatives that will minimize the environmental impact of their services.
How can data center operators meet the immense requirements of AI workloads while making sustainability a priority?
We recently sat down with Joanna Soucy, Executive Vice President of Brand Strategy at Aligned Data Centers (Aligned), to discuss how the company has successfully readied its data center customers to accommodate AI/ML workloads, while simultaneously prioritizing the deployment of sustainable solutions to minimize environmental impact.
The Modern Data Center Journal (TMDCJ): For our readers who may not be familiar, what is Aligned? What role does the company play in the data center space?
Joanna Soucy: Aligned delivers innovative, sustainable data center solutions that empower global hyperscale and enterprise customers to scale with confidence. Our adaptive infrastructure is designed to meet the evolving demands of modern business and next-generation applications such as AI, DL/ML, and HPC, offering unparalleled flexibility, efficiency, and reliability.
Leveraging our air, liquid, and hybrid cooling technologies, we optimize space, water, and energy consumption, reducing operational costs, and minimizing environmental impact. With a focus on vertical growth and densification, Aligned enables our customers to expand seamlessly without disruption.
TMDCJ: Aligned says that its data centers are “AI & ML ready.” What does that mean? As a data center provider, what did you have to implement or change to make your data centers “AI & ML ready?”
Joanna Soucy: Applications such as artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and machine learning are pushing rack densities beyond the average kW per rack that most providers are currently equipped to cool. Many customers are moving from solely air to – most often – a hybrid of air and liquid cooling to effectively cool higher-density racks.
“The convergence and growth of AI, high-performance computing, cloud, and other technologies and applications is driving a radical transformation of data center infrastructure.” – Joanna Soucy
Legacy data centers typically require complete retrofits or even separate build-to-suit developments to effectively accommodate this transition to hybrid and liquid cooling. At Aligned, our designs are flexible enough to allow our customers to seamlessly shift to hybrid and liquid cooling in existing data halls and live environments. We call this liquid without the lift.
We also work closely with customers, leading server and chip manufacturers, and leaders in the space to ensure we’re as ahead of the curve as possible.
TMDCJ: As AI & ML workloads become more popular, what large macro trends do you anticipate we’ll see across the data center industry? Do you see large impacts in things like site selection?
Joanna Soucy: The convergence and growth of AI, high-performance computing, cloud, and other technologies and applications is driving a radical transformation of data center infrastructure. This evolution necessitates things like enhanced modularity, energy efficiency, a larger skilled workforce, and a more strategic approach focused on innovation and adaptability. Concurrently, sustainability imperatives, rising densities, and resource constraints are reshaping data center design, operations, and location, with factors such as energy, water, land, and regulatory compliance becoming paramount.
TMDCJ: Aligned has data center campuses across North America and Latin America. Can you compare how these markets are growing? How does growth and interest differ between the two? What is driving this growth? Are the drivers the same in both regions?
Joanna Soucy: The data center industry is experiencing robust growth in both the U.S. and Latin America, albeit with distinct characteristics. The U.S. market, while mature, continues to expand and is driven by established players and growth in cloud and next-generation technologies such as AI and HPC.
“Our offering focuses on providing customers with significant flexibility, speed-to-market, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness amidst rapidly changing needs and data center environments.” – Joanna Soucy
Conversely, Latin America presents a burgeoning opportunity with rapid development fueled by increasing cloud adoption and digital services demand. The region’s abundance of renewable energy, particularly hydropower and rapidly growing wind power in Brazil, is a compelling advantage over some resource-constrained markets in North America.
TMDCJ: What is VSAS? What was the basis or inspiration for the VSAS data center platform?
Joanna Soucy: Aligned’s offering is underpinned by four pillars that we refer to as “VSASTM” – Velocity, Scalability, Adaptability, and Sustainability. We understand the shifting nature of today’s buyer requirements, densities, and growth models. As a result, we have developed a data center platform that is reliable, adaptable, and flexible enough to serve the needs of today’s hyperscale and large-enterprise communities.
Our offering focuses on providing customers with significant flexibility, speed-to-market, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness amidst rapidly changing needs and data center environments.
Our first pillar is velocity. The rapidly evolving technology landscape, coupled with our customers’ need to scale their operations quickly to meet increasing client demands means that today’s data center deployments must achieve unprecedented speed-to-market. In today’s fast-paced digital economy, speed-to-market is no longer a luxury but a necessity for data center customers.
Next is scalability. Aligned is strategically expanding our footprint to meet the escalating demands of our customers’ fast-evolving IT environments. Our site selection process is rigorous, prioritizing locations with abundant power, robust fiber connectivity, and room for future growth.
“Sustainability has been a cornerstone of Aligned since our inception. Our vision of a greener data center industry drives many of the decisions we make.” – Joanna Soucy
Our next pillar is adaptability. New technologies and market trends necessitate quick adjustments to IT infrastructure. Aligned’s adaptable infrastructure enables clients to ExpandonDemandTM and truly future-proof their IT environment. Our adaptive data center designs empower our customers to be agile, efficient, and responsive to the dynamic demands of the digital age.
And finally, there is sustainability. Aligned has been committed to solving the world’s toughest sustainability challenges associated with data center infrastructure, energy consumption, and water usage since our inception.
Sustainability is at the core of our operations, from design and construction to daily operations. We empower our customers to achieve their sustainability goals by providing infrastructure solutions that optimize resource utilization and reduce environmental impact.
TMDCJ: Aligned claims that it views sustainability as a differentiator and that the company does more than offset its carbon footprint with carbon offsets. Why is sustainability so important to Aligned? What is the company doing to become more sustainable?
Joanna Soucy: Sustainability has been a cornerstone of Aligned since our inception. Our vision of a greener data center industry drives many of the decisions we make. We believe sustainability is not just a responsibility, but a strategic advantage. It benefits our employees, customers, communities, and planet.
At Aligned, we have several sustainability initiatives that we prioritize. First, we ensure the sustainable design and construction of our data centers, and we are industry leaders in PUE, WUE, and CUE. One hundred percent of Aligned’s power is renewable, and we also have ‘waterless’ data centers via closed-loop systems and air-cooled chillers.
We also prioritize a nature-first design aesthetic of our data centers, and ensure that we protect views, reduce noise, capture carbon, and limit visibility from public roadways.
Some of our other initiatives include forest preservation and new forest planting, brownfield site development and reclamation, reducing VOCs, waste diversion and recycling, as well as having a focus on embodied carbon tracking and supply chain decarbonization. To learn more about Aligned Data Centers, click HERE. Joanna Soucy is the Executive Vice President of Brand Strategy for Aligned. She is responsible for implementing brand positioning, promotional activities, public relations, and other business strategies through multiple communication channels in order to maximize reach and effectiveness of Aligned’s mission, vision and values.
