A Critical New Chapter For Data Centres
The data centre landscape has irreversibly shifted in 2024.
Once labelled as giant facilities humming in the background, this year has seen these power-hungry facilities spring into global public consciousness. Given such a dramatic increased need in digital services including artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, companies and customers alike are seeking more space and power for their infrastructure.
Such an urgent demand has led to data centres being declared national critical infrastructure (CNI) in the United Kingdom. This was the first CNI designation in almost a decade and is necessary to help protect critical data infrastructure, in addition to providing businesses with greater reassurances in our digital world.
Redefining mission-critical data centres
A CNI in the UK means that data centres will be classified the same way as water, energy and emergency service systems. As a result, they will receive greater support from the government to prevent and recover from drastic incidents such as cyberattacks, power outages or environmental disasters.
With the UK currently home to the highest number of data centres in Western Europe, the industry already generates an estimated £4.6bn (US$5.13bn) a year in revenue. Their renewed status is designed to boost business confidence in their data centre investments across the country, in addition to international businesses setting their sights on expansion investments.
Doug Loewe, CEO at Kao Data:
“Kao Data is delighted to see the Government’s announcement naming data centres as critical national infrastructure, fulfilling a pledge made in the 2024 Labour manifesto.
“This announcement comes at a crucial inflection point for the sector, with demand for data centres rising significantly due to the growth of AI. It signals the UK’s commitment to building sustainable infrastructure fit for an AI-driven future.
“Kao Data believes data centres can play a key role in regenerating former industrial sites, contributing to economic renewal without the need to relax planning permissions or build on greenbelt land.
“The announcement recognises the significant opportunities that new data centres can bring to the UK economy, but this should be viewed as just the first step. It highlights the growing importance of data centres to the UK economy.”
As the demand for AI and other transformative technologies continued to dominate the global data centre market in 2024, it raised the debate over how facilities could be operated sustainably.
As part of this, the public has focused on the massive energy consumption of data centres, causing many companies and governments to push for more energy-efficient designs and the use of renewable energy sources. The Republic of Ireland, for instance, was forced to introduce a ban on new construction in certain areas because of energy constraints. This has ultimately led to data centre builders and operators having to reevaluate how best to innovate and run their facilities.
With the digital economy having evolved massively in recent months, classifying data centres as critical infrastructure hopes to shift some negative perceptions. Industry experts continue to argue that data centres can be run sustainably and can be well-managed to help national economies and support local communities.
In order to achieve this on a larger scale, data centre organisations are being advised to strengthen their sustainability targets, in line with increasing data centre regulations.
Dame Dawn Childs, CEO of Pure Data Centres Group:
“We welcome the government’s decision to classify data centres as critical national infrastructure (CNI) and look forward to working with the relevant agencies. This significant step underscores the vital role our facilities play in our digital economy and national security.
“The data centre industry works incredibly hard to provide and maintain the digital infrastructure which powers and supports all our lives. Reliability and security are always at the forefront of what we do. To get the official recognition and support that we are a vital part of UK infrastructure feels like a very important milestone.
“At Pure Data Centres, we fully support this initiative and are committed to working closely with all stakeholders to strengthen our nation's digital infrastructure. We hope the new status will encourage all stakeholders to come together to enable smoother planning and delivery of new data centres.”
Protecting digital assets
Placing data centres into mainstream consciousness is also designed to deter cybercriminals from targeting facilities, or systems, that may play host to vital data. This includes sensitive or personal data like healthcare or financial information.
As they house such a broad range of information, data centres are now having to demonstrate they are secure and stable – particularly in the wake of several high-profile blackout incidents that left companies completely stranded.
One of the most significant stories in the technology world in 2024 saw the global IT outage cause havoc for businesses and essential services around the world. Caused by a faulty CrowdStrike system update on Windows PCs, the failed update led to flights being grounded, the cancellation of doctors appointments and millions of workers unable to use their devices.
It was a wake-up-call around the world, leading to questions over the fragility of our digital IT infrastructure and how quickly information can be withheld or breached.
Peter Grimmond, Head of Technology, International at Veritas Technologies:
“Recent major IT outages have shown just how dependent our economy has become on IT services. And with the trend towards centralisation of IT assets into substantially fewer, much larger data centre facilities, our IT eggs are in fewer baskets that need to be properly protected from a variety of threats – whether they be natural events, such as severe weather, major accidents, or malicious attacks.
“Potential disasters can originate from the most unexpected source. Who would have predicted, for example, that a software update intended to enhance security could in fact result in outages of thousands of IT systems?! This highlights the need to take a broad, multi-layered approach to risk management that considers not only the data centres themselves but also the IT Services and data that they host.
“True IT Service resilience is a joint responsibility: government and data centre service providers need to take responsibility for assuring the resilience of the IT infrastructure. But the IT service owners making use of these facilities also need to assure they have conducted thorough IT service-level risk assessments and have mitigations and incident-response plans in place to deal with a broad variety of threats.”
To confront these incidents, data centres must recognise their vital importance in ensuring the wider technology industry remains stable. This comes with the obvious responsibility of keeping data safe, which comes in a variety of forms – including encryption, firewalls, continuous monitoring and predictive analytics to bolster threat detection and remove the risk of an outage.
As we move into 2025, technology will continue to both help and hinder data centre progress, but enterprise awareness will be the key to successful and stable digital transformation.
Ian Jeffs, General Manager of Lenovo’s Infrastructure and Solutions Group (ISG):
“As technologies like quantum computing and AI-based services grow, the demand for data centres increases, placing even greater importance on their security.
“With data centres driving everything from banking to communications, any disruption would have a massive impact on industries, economies, and society at large. Thus, global security standards are vital to ensuring their continued reliability and integrity, and the near-daily news of security breaches highlights the pressing need for strong cybersecurity standards.
“Security is crucial for business transformation and growth, and as data centres become more essential, their protection becomes more critical than ever. Stricter regulations are on the horizon, and by staying proactive companies can ensure compliance and safeguard their operations and the wider ecosystem.”
To read the full article in the magazine, click HERE.
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