When I joined DCD some nine years ago, the publication and the industry were in a very different place. Both were much smaller, and much more siloed.

At the time, we focused primarily on the design and build of data centers, but it soon became clear that we couldn’t serve that audience well without looking further afield.

The growing TDP of chips and the jump in density of racks have fundamentally changed data center cooling, and facility-level design. Geopolitical tussles over submarine cable routes reshape how the Internet is connected. Energy price surges and grid constraints have reoriented the site selection process.

To understand this sector and cover it in a way that is useful requires a holistic approach, where we zoom in, examining the smallest technical changes, and then zoom out to consider nation-state moves that have profound ramifications across the spectrum.

For a good part of a decade, that has been our approach to covering digital infrastructure at DCD. It’s allowed us to grow significantly, going from a team of three journalists when I started to 11 now - and more on the way - and allowed us to become the sector’s largest publication.

This team is also supported by a fantastic broadcast team, marketing services team, conference production team, and more, all of which have also grown.

Of course, at the same time, the industry has exploded - thanks in part to the pandemic shift to online and the AI boom.

This has, frankly, been great for DCD. We have more to write about, more reasons for people to come to our conferences, and more people to talk to on our broadcasts.

But having more to cover can be a double-edged sword. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin, and let chasing output and traffic dilute our commitment to quality. So, at the same time as expanding our DCD team, we’re also expanding into another publication: SDxCentral.

Founded originally as SDNCentral, SDxCentral has been covering the digital infrastructure landscape for more than a decade, with a focus on networking, telecommunications, and cybersecurity. We plan to continue that coverage, and expand it further.

Looking back to our vision for holistic coverage, it is increasingly clear that you cannot accurately understand the broader digital infrastructure market without getting into the weeds on networking.

For example, as AI clusters move into the millions of GPUs, how that is interconnected for both training and inference has a huge impact on the wider industry. Following that data along the network and out of the data center then informs us about the Edge, as well as the actual consumption of these models.

So what does this actually mean for you? The good news is that, if you don’t care about anything SDxCentral will cover, nothing will change. While DCD’s team will help inform some of SDxCentral’s coverage, there will be no decrease in our output or limitations to our coverage.

However, if it is something that excites you, please join us as we build out this new addition to our family. SDxCentral’s wonderful executive editor Dan Meyer will continue to write for the publication, and I encourage you to check out his latest pieces. We are also hiring multiple new journalists for the team, and I look forward to announcing who we’re bringing on in the months to come.

Where it makes sense, DCD coverage will appear on SDxCentral, and SDxCentral coverage will appear on DCD, but the two sites will be distinct publications with their own voices and beats.

This is a bet on human-first, journalist-led coverage of a fascinating and technical area. You trust us with your time and attention, and we do not take it lightly.

For me, the most exciting part will be behind the scenes, where the two teams will be able to share ideas and knowledge, making both stronger as a result.

For you, it also means more free stuff. Starting today, if you have a DCD account you’ll be able to log in to SDxCentral, and vice versa.

That version of SDxCentral you see today is only the start. We’re rapidly building out new features and functionality to the site, and hiring across the board to build out the division.

DCD has changed a huge amount in the nine years I have been here. With SDxCentral, we’re going to be moving a lot faster. I hope you join us for the ride.