This Week's Top 5 Stories in the Data Centre Industry

AWS Data Centre in UAE Hit in Iranian Strikes

As hostility between the US and Iran continues, Amazon Web Services (AWS) confirms that one of its data centre facilities in the UAE has been caught in the crossfire, triggering a fire and service disruption across part of its ME-CENTRAL-1 region.

AWS states that unidentified objects hit an Availability Zone in the early hours of Sunday 1 March. The incident is widely speculated to link to Iranian strikes on the UAE and other Gulf Arab states, in response to US-Israeli action that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The most recent update on the AWS Health dashboard (2 March, 6:22AM PST) reads: “We continue to work towards recovery of the two impaired Availability Zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) in the ME-CENTRAL-1 Region.

How Dell’s PowerEdge XR9700 Conquers Harsh Edge Environments

Dell Technologies has introduced the PowerEdge XR9700, a ruggedised, closed-loop liquid-cooled server engineered to run cloud RAN and edge AI workloads in unprotected outdoor environments.

Designed for mounting on utility poles, rooftops and building exteriors, the XR9700 extends x86 compute beyond traditional data centre walls. Dell describes it as the industry’s first outdoor x86 server purpose-built for cloud RAN and edge applications, enabling operators to deploy open compute capabilities at zero-footprint locations.

As telecom networks densify and AI data centre use cases expand, operators face constraints around space, power and environmental exposure. The XR9700 is positioned to address these limitations by integrating high-performance processing within a fully enclosed, weather-resistant chassis.

Start Campus Data Centre Achieves LEED Gold Certification

Start Campus' first operational facility at its SINES Data Campus, SIN01, has achieved a certification at gold tier from one of the world's most widely recognised standards for sustainable building design and construction.

SIN01 is the first building within the 1.2GW SINES Data Campus, a hyperscale development designed to support the next generation of cloud and AI-scale digital infrastructure.

The certification in question is LEED Gold BD+C v4, awarded by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI). Inéria, LEED's consultancy partner, also supported the process.

Why are Tech Giants Signing a Ratepayer Protection Pledge?

The biggest tech companies are building out data centres across the globe, with construction plans across several US states, meaning electricity consumption by the infrastructure is only set to increase.

Meta, for example, has announced grand plans this year to build multi-billion dollar data centres, including the US$10bn data centre which is currently under construction in Indiana.

With the hyperscale data centre build-out that is currently happening across the US, local concern spread about a potential hike in energy costs for using the power created by data centre infrastructure.

However, tech companies, including Meta, are signing a deal which agrees to protect American consumers from price hikes and lower electricity costs for consumers in the long term, called the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

Submer: UK Expansion and Partnered Push for Liquid Cooling

Submer has announced a new UK partnership aimed at accelerating the adoption of liquid cooling technologies as AI and high-performance computing workloads increase data centre power density.

The company, which provides end-to-end AI infrastructure services, has signed an agreement with Boston, a provider of high-performance computing and AI infrastructure solutions.

The collaboration will expand access to Submer’s liquid cooling technologies in the UK alongside design, deployment and lifecycle support services.