The data center industry is no stranger to change, but what we are experiencing today is different in both pace and pressure. Expectations have shifted because timelines have compressed. Market demand is at an all-time high and expanding faster than Moore’s Law. We want our tokens now!

Over the past several years, I have observed prefabricated data center modules and packages move from a niche solution to something our industry is benefiting from greatly. Driven by AI workloads, cloud migrations, enterprise expansions and the continued push toward the edge, market demand is accelerating faster than traditional construction delivery methods can keep pace with.

The question is: How can data center owners, builders, engineers and the entire construction ecosystem fully benefit from this platform?

“Talk to me Goose”: The six S’s: Speed, safety, schedule, scalability, standardization and serviceability

Maverick and Goose from ‘Top Gun’ said it best: “I feel the need, the need for speed.” Data center owners and builders are experiencing unprecedented cycles to market and future market demands will dictate that these cycles continue to shorten. Prefabricated and modular packages bring forward 6 critical advantages:

1. Speed: Fabrication of complex systems in a factory setting versus jobsite congestion allows for controlled, efficient production of high-quality modules. Fabricating multiple identical skids allows for production efficiency to grow with the factory personnel producing these solutions day after day. Additionally, some jobsite commissioning activities can be completed at the factory instead of on the jobsite.
2. Safety: Fabricating complex systems in a factory setting removes potential safety issues arising from trade congestion on jobsites. Reducing jobsite recordables is always the primary driver with a goal of zero.
3. Schedule: Compression of the construction cycle continues to compound. Rigging factory-built modules into place reduces field trades congestion at the jobsite and allows for simple set-in-place finish of complex systems.
4. Scalability: We know we are going to expand this project site; it is just a matter of when. When the engineering, design and fabrication process is already proven out, it is much easier to order the next several, potentially identical modules as future site expansions materialize.
5. Standardization: Each module, sub-assembly package or prefabricated skid is designed and produced the same in a controlled factory setting. Even if the package design or CPU/GPU rack loads change in the future, the same standardized process is in place for engineering, design and fabrication. And with any luck, many of the same people originally involved are still in place. Product, process, people.
6. Serviceability: Now that we are making tokens, we are going to require the infrastructure to reliably function to support the CPU/GPU compute environment for the next several decades. Proper planning of serviceability needs for the infrastructure takes place during the design phase of the pre-packaged skids and sub-assemblies.

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again”: What can show up on a truck?

Willie Nelson is an American icon, just like the semi-truck. Generally, in today’s logistics world, what limits the size and structure of pre-packaged skids and modular solutions is the size of the semi-truck that brings it from the factory to the jobsite.

For those of us brave enough to ship via ocean freight (and have maritime insurance), barge up rivers and crane from the port, we might get larger footprints but at some point, in the last mile we may still run into the restriction of semi-truck movement of the goods.

Some complex systems are fabricated in a footprint that wholly fits on the truck bed. Larger, complex systems or individual equipment components are now being designed to be fabricated at the factory in sub-assembly sections that ship individually and then are Lego-blocked together as four, six, eight, and even ten, 20, 50 or more sub-assemblies into one master system.

Some of the solutions showing up on trucks to data center jobsites today include the following:

• Overhead infrastructure blocks which include liquid cooling pipework, structure, busbars, RPPs, and other electrical components
• Manufactured, containerized building blocks including white space racking, piping, and low voltage electrical systems
• Low voltage switchgear, medium voltage transformers, UPS systems, batteries and other equipment to support AC/DC conversion
• Battery energy storage systems (BESS)
• Pre-packaged white space modules
• Cooling towers, dry-coolers, adiabatic coolers
• Pre-packaged primary chilled water system plants, water cooled and air cooled, including pumps, piping, controls, filtration and other accessories
• Buffer tank and pump skids
• CDUs and pre-packaged liquid cooled piping systems and accessories for secondary cold plate cooling loops
• Sheet metal subassemblies
• Onsite power generation systems
• Entire data centers starting at 1 MW and approaching 1GW range

The above list is expanding and evolving to meet market demands. In the future this list will continue to incorporate new technologies and ever larger CPU/GPU rack loads to accommodate densification.

Closing perspective: We evolve together

Modular and prefabricated data center solutions are a strategic tool to deliver tokens now!

The organizations that will lead are not the ones that adopt modular the fastest, but the ones that incorporate it most effectively. They understand where it accelerates outcomes, where it streamlines project schedules, where it reduces project risk, and ultimately how to integrate it into a long-term, rapid token producing strategy.

As we move together into a world of 130, 250, 500kW and beyond rack densities, fewer available skilled field tradespeople, more extreme construction jobsite weather conditions, and building data centers in more remote geographic locations; the advantages of modular and prefabricated data center solutions will help the industry deliver tokens faster.

Who knew Willie Nelson, Maverick and Goose would be helping us build data centers?

At Data Power Technology Group, we partner with data center stakeholders to deliver scalable, high-performance infrastructure solutions that keep pace with accelerating demand.

If you would like to continue the conversation, I welcome you to reach out to me directly at [email protected]