The moment has arrived to reveal the winners of the 2023 edition of the annual DCD Awards !
DCD is delighted to honor the most talented people and the best data center projects in the industry.
As ever, hundreds of entries were submitted by contestants from across the world. An independent panel of data center experts selected the finalists for the open entry categories, and determined which was worthy of an award.
Today, the awards were presented in a gala ceremony - and the winners are listed here
Click here to see the names of all the finalists .
Edge Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: NextDC Smart Mining at the Extreme Edge PH1 Port Hedland Data Centre
This category recognizes new Edge computing deployments globally that have illustrated robust planning, designing and deployment at the Edge but, equally importantly, have created unique business value, delivering on both IT and business objectives.
NextDC’s extreme Edge project in remote Western Australia meets the critical demand for pit-to-port ultra-low-latency infrastructure and safer, tech-enabled operations that were historically only found in major cities.
Category sponsor: Yotta
Asia Pacific Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: NTT Global Data Centers Green Tech & Liquid Cooling Project
This award recognizes projects from across Asia Pacific that have pushed the boundaries of data center design and construction over the past year.
This project allowed for cutting-edge liquid and immersion cooling facilities to be deployed in an existing multi-tenant data center, requiring huge innovation without disrupting existing tenants. The project has resulted in greater scalability and sustainability with PUE reducing from more than 1.5 to less than 1.2.
Category sponsor: Huawei
Middle East & Africa Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: Khazna Data Centers Abu Dhabi 6 Project (AUH 6)
This award is dedicated to projects from across the Middle East & Africa that have deployed innovative new technologies and novel engineering, design, and construction strategies throughout the build process.
Completed in just 19 months with no less than three million man-hours, this state-of-the-art data center boasts an impressive 31.8MW of IT power capacity. It has been awarded LEED Gold and Estidama Pearl 4 certifications for its construction, and highlights how sustainability and innovation combine to create a brighter digital future across the UAE.
Category sponsor: NXTRA by Airtel
Latin America Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: Telecom Argentina Data Center Transformation Project
This award recognizes projects from across Latin America that have demonstrated significant innovation in their data center design and build.
With over $76 million investment in infrastructure and the evolution of over 64 buildings to Edge facilities, the Telecom Argentina transformation project reduced total-cost-of-ownership and created robust low-latency connectivity for broadband services, enterprise and Government applications.
Category sponsor: CEEDA
North American Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: QScale The First OCP Ready™ Colocation Facility in Canada
This award recognizes projects from across North America that have pushed the boundaries of data center design and construction.
Powered by 142MW of renewable energy, QScale’s high-density colocation facility is designed specifically to support high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. The OCP-Ready facility includes a unique waste-heat recovery design and can host power-intensive liquid-cooled racks of 200kW+.
Category sponsor: ZincFive
European Data Center Project of the Year
Winner: Cyxtera & Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) Quantum Computing as a Service
This award is dedicated to projects from across Europe that have deployed the most novel engineering, design and construction strategies.
This project took a big step towards moving quantum computing from a “lab” environment into a fully managed, industry-ready environment with the security, interconnectivity, network bandwidth and redundant infrastructure that is needed as the technology matures. The partnership makes quantum computing more accessible to organizations and narrows the quantum divide, to meet the requirements of future AI and quantum workloads.
This category is sponsored by Global Commissioning
Mission Critical Tech Innovation Award
Winner: Xtralis Li-ion Tamer Gen 3
This award recognizes excellence in cutting-edge, mission-critical technology solutions applied to the data center environment.
The Li-ion Tamer Gen 3 detects Li-ion battery failure before it progresses into a fire, thereby enabling automation systems to shut down an affected cell before further damage occurs. This innovation prevents the severe consequences of a battery failure increasing worker safety, protecting assets, and ensuring no interruption to business operations.
Category sponsor: Digital Realty
Energy Impact Award
Winner: STACK Infrastructure EMEA Heat Reuse at City Scale in Oslo
This award recognizes data center projects or technological innovations where the primary goal has been the reduction of energy consumption and/or carbon usage.
This project is the first city-scale heat reuse project in Europe and demonstrates what can be done with innovative engineering approaches and collaboration with municipal authorities and power companies. The project provides heat to 5,000 households in the city, and Celsio calculates that it has reduced its own energy requirement by 17,600,000 kWh (17.6GWh) per year, saving nearly 14,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year.
Category sponsor: Eaton
Environmental Impact Award
Winner: EdgeCloudLink (ECL) MV1 Fully Sustainable Off-grid Data Center
This award recognizes data center projects or technological innovations within the data center where the primary goal has been to reduce the overall environmental impact of a data center
This groundbreaking clean-energy solution revolves around an off-grid, green hydrogen-based powered modular data center, ensuring uninterrupted 24/7 operations with zero emissions. It boasts an impressive power usage effectiveness (PUE) of just 1.05, as well as a 7× enhancement in data density per rack, perfectly tailored to accommodate the growing demands of AI high-density racks in a sustainable way that does not rely on grid power.
Category sponsor: RED Engineering
Community Impact Award
Winner: Scala Data Centers FastDeploy Brazilian Rio de Janeiro Data Center
This award recognizes projects or collaborations with the primary goal being societal and community development and growth, where corporate aims have been aligned with wider social and cultural responsibility.
Scala’s robust environmental and social management initiative is built around increasing trust and collaboration with local communities, addressing social inequality and creating social as well as economic value. The schemes have, so far, created 4,400+ jobs to support local labor and surrounding economies and Scala will have awarded 140+ student scholarships by the end of 2023.
Category sponsor: Eland Cables
Editor’s Choice Award
Winner: DEEP GREEN Reducing Carbon Impact & Saving Swimming Pools with Data Furnaces & Heat Recapture
The DCD editorial team have shortlisted their favorite projects from this year's outstanding entrants, and chose their favorite project of the year to crown the Editor's Choice award recipient.
Deep Green is establishing a network of metro-Edge data centers across Europe focusing on energy recovery and redistribution. The target for any deployment is to capture up to 90 percent of the heat generated. The pilot project in Exmouth, UK, has saved the community swimming pool £22,000 a year in energy costs and there are now thousands of potential heat hosts requesting Deep Green units.
Category sponsor: Mercury
Data Center Construction Team of the Year
Winner: Khazna Data Centers Khazna Abu DHABI6 (AUH 6) Project
This award recognizes teams that have overcome regulatory, supply chain, technical or other major challenges during the construction process, to deliver projects on-time and on-budget.
Khazna’s 31.8MW facility was completed in Abu Dhabi in just 19 months. Strong team dynamics and effective processes were key to success, ensuring a collaborative, communicative environment. The project combined over three million man-hours without any loss time incidents to deliver against the highest standards of sustainability and efficiency.
Category sponsor: Matrix Group
Data Center Operations Team of the Year
Winner: Salute Mission Critical Excellence in Rapid Facility Transition, Austin
This award recognizes teams that have demonstrated great organization, coordination and dedication in addressing a significant change in a mission-critical environment.
Salute Mission Critical took charge of two Austin facilities within a mere two-week time span, impressing the judging panel and demonstrating their organizational prowess and dedication to excellence in the face of any challenge.
Category sponsor: DCD>Academy
Young Mission-Critical Engineer of the Year
Winner: Alexander Doey, Principal Mechanical Engineer, RED Engineering Design
This is one of the most enduring categories of the DCD>Awards and like last year attracted a massive 28 entrants! Giving the judges no easy task to determine the winner.
The data center community needs the next generation of talent to drive its continued growth and evolution, and this award recognizes young engineers that have demonstrated successful project leadership and delivery, and have burgeoning profiles that belie their age.
With a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Alexander’s technical knowledge and natural leadership skills have propelled him quickly through the ranks at RED. In just three years, Alex has cemented himself as a mechanical design team leader within the Hyperscale team, thanks to his expertise in refrigerant-based design.
This award is sponsored by Kirby Group Engineering
Data Center Woman of the Year
Winner: Cyre Mercedes Denny, Global Program Director, Schneider Electric
This award celebrates a visionary who has not only pushed the boundaries of technology but also paved the way for inclusivity and innovation. Her unyielding commitment to building or operating robust, scalable, and sustainable digital infrastructure has empowered businesses, connected communities, and transformed the way we think.
Candidates for this award have been nominated by the industry, with the winner being selected by a specially convened group of judges.
This year's winner, Cyre Mercedes Denny, is the Senior Global Program Director at Schneider Electric, and is passionate about diversity & inclusion. Cyre has served on the Board of Women at Schneider Electric, where she established the first cross-state diversity and inclusion network. She is also an active member of HITEC, the largest community of Hispanic technology professionals. In her free time, Cyre mentors students in her hometown, the Bronx.
This award is sponsored by Quantum Switch
Outstanding Contribution to the Data Center Industry
Winner: Bill Angle, formerly of CS Technology
Every industry has its champions, thought leaders and pioneers who will be revered for their achievements for years to come. The previous winners of this Award are all distinguished by their extensive service to the data center industry, and have in some way changed the way in which the industry looks at key challenges or key opportunities.
This year's winner, Bill Angle, has been working in the data center business since 1977 when he first developed a preventative maintenance program at Maryland National Bank for critical infrastructure. In the mid-eighties, he began his career as a consultant and later became a founding partner of CS Technology.
In the last 40 years, Bill has been involved in the design of nearly 1,800 data center projects, many of them groundbreaking in terms of the evolution of the mission-critical engineering discipline, especially within the financial services arena.
Bill holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and an MBA in Finance from the University of Baltimore. He is now semi-retired but continues to work on special projects.
This award is sponsored by: Mercury
