Last year will go down in history as an inflection point in the data center sector.
The AI boom has fully taken root, liquid cooling is all the rage, and power has become the single biggest roadblock to further growth.
Keeping track of all that has happened in 2024 is a momentous task - at DCD alone, we've published just under 5,000 news stories, and more than 130 features, leading to over 17 million page views.
The End-of-Year Review Supplement
A closer look at the trends, technologies, and transformations that defined 2024 in the data center industry
Across our End-of-Year Review Supplement, we tried to distill all that coverage into the key events of the year that you should be aware of. So, without further ado, here are the stories that defined 2024.
The most popular by traffic
AWS acquires Talen’s nuclear data center campus in Pennsylvania
This was a huge deal - literally and figuratively. The announcement fired the starting gun on the nuclear revolution seizing the data center industry. However, it's still not clear if AWS can get away with getting the power without having to pay traditional grid fees.
Unsurprisingly, outages are good for traffic: People want to know why their system isn't working. The CrowdStrike outage, which came at the same time as an unrelated Microsoft Azure issue, was the outage to end all outages.
A self-inflicted wound, the faulty update grounded planes, broke banks, and took TV stations off air. While some of this was unavoidable for those impacted, it was also a painful reminder of the importance of backup plans. Some companies, like Delta, did not have anything in place - and were down much longer than the outage itself.
Global data center electricity use to double by 2026 - IEA report
After a decade of efficiency staving off data center power growth, the industry now has to contend with a future of rapid power increases. The International Energy Agency estimates that data center electricity usage will double by 2026, hitting 1,000TWh. Other prognosticators have differing timelines, but all agree that the sector is going to put intense pressure on the grid.
This is having a profound impact on where data centers are being built, how large they will be, and what effect they will have on their local communities.
Oracle lays off several hundred OCI staff, as part of broader layoffs
While 2024 has been a year of growth, excess, and soaring valuations, Big Tech hasn't stopped firing people. That's partly because it helps the companies' earnings-per-head, and because it allows them to reassert dominance over an increasingly activist workforce, but it's also because of this year of growth.
Companies are cutting unrelated sections of their employee base, and slashing middle management, in an effort to push all focus onto building out AI as fast as possible. If and when that AI reaches a certain level, expect it to lead to further layoffs as it replaces workers.
Microsoft acquires land in Johor, Malaysia, for data center
The AI boom is a rising tide that is raising all countries’ data center markets. However, some parts of the world are benefiting far more than others. In APAC, Malaysia is quickly establishing itself as the home of hyperscale AI mega data centers for the region. Microsoft has acquired hundreds of acres in the country and committed to investing $2.2 billion in cloud computing and AI over the next four years.
The actual biggest stories
Traffic is not a good metric to judge what makes an important story. Random luck on a search engine can send clicks soaring, or - as was the case for the Talen story - a tweet from Elon Musk can bring a wave of new fans.
So, beyond the above stories, what are the ones we think mattered most?
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to return as Microsoft signs 20-year, 835MW AI data center PPA
We cover the nuclear shift in greater detail later in this supplement, but it's worth reiterating how big a deal AWS' Talen and Microsoft's Constellation partnerships were.
In this case, Microsoft is paying above market rates to bring a nuclear power plant back online - right next to the site of a controversial nuclear disaster. Can any other story hammer home how extreme the demand is for the AI wave?
Meta announces 4 million sq ft, 2GW Louisiana data center campus
'A megawatt isn't cool. You know what is? A gigawatt.' We have entered this gigawatt era with gusto, and are quickly pushing beyond it into the 2GW era with this Meta project, and expected Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle megaprojects.
Here's the 5GW, 30 million sq ft data center pitch doc OpenAI showed the White House
Moving beyond the 1-2GW range, OpenAI has dreams of a 5GW megaproject that would be the same scale as all of Microsoft's global capacity at the beginning of this year.
We got our hands on the document the company showed the White House laying out a vision for a $100 billion facility with some two million GPUs. Anthropic's CEO has also said $100 billion data centers are on the way. But some perspective: OpenAI doesn't have $100 billion, it's not clear anyone can get 5GW, and we may be reaching the limits of AI scaling laws.
At least one subsea fiber cable damaged in the Red Sea, some reports blame Houthi rebels
The fact that a significant number of the world's most critical Internet cables wend their way through Egypt and across the Red Sea has always been a ticking time bomb. This past year, things went boom.
Rebel groups actively attacking ships in the Red Sea have indirectly damaged a number of cables after a listing vessel dragged its anchor. Attacks on such ships remain an ongoing risk which could cause further devastating outages in 2025.
Investigators suspect Baltic Sea cable cuts were deliberate, Chinese ship to blame
Similarly, strange actions are afoot in the Baltic Sea, where a Chinese ship is believed to have cut two subsea Internet cables. Russia is the prime suspect - both because the ship came from a Russian port, and because of the nation's increasing hybrid warfare attacks on infrastructure.
Unlike previous incidents, however, this one is notable for the swift response from European nations. The suspected ship was quickly caught, and investigations are underway. While other attacks were dealt with or ignored out of the spotlight, these cuts have been unusual in how public condemnation has been. Expect an increase in cable defense spending in the year ahead.
This Christmas, another four Internet cables were cut in a similar incident.
Bonus
Other stories of note: Nvidia reaches $3 trillion, as GPU AI king solidifies control; ExxonMobil plots natural gas power plant to exclusively power data centers; and Schneider Electric bought liquid cooling company Motivair.
Thank you!
2024 was a crazy year for data centers, and a crazy year for DCD. We've been able to hire aggressively in key areas, including energy, compute, and telecoms, thanks to your support.
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