Inside Data Centre Pubcast: A podcast about Data Centers, in a pub!

0:24SPEAKER_06:Andy David. Welcome to the first ever Inside Data Center podcast. Firstly, I want to say thanks for coming. I have a lot of ideas and never really know if they'll work. And I think hopefully this one works. Well, the judge can be at the end of the discussion, but a lot of people have turned up. Thanks to everyone that's helped me organise it. You know who you are, Spa, Datorex, everybody that's helped. Thanks for the sponsors. We couldn't do it without you.

0:55SPEAKER_06:It does mean a lot. And obviously, thank you to the to the guests and to my co-host Rory. We always coordinate within black, as always. I did say that it could be a funeral. But again, we'll be the judge of that. What we're going to talk about is industry perception. One of my drivers is to try and change the perception of this industry. I was just saying to Russ that it's quite a stale industry, and hopefully by having a conversation in a pub, we can get the message to a new audience.

1:26SPEAKER_06:Before we go into it, do you want to do a quick introduction? If I go Russell first?

1:31SPEAKER_05:Sure. Hi everybody. I'm uh Russell Poole, CEO of Apto.

1:35SPEAKER_04:Hi, my name's Paul Hood. I'm the uh COO of AVK.

1:39SPEAKER_03:And I'm Rory Flashman, the managing director of Spark Communications, and Andy's co-host for the evening.

1:45SPEAKER_06:And I'm Andy Davis, host of Inside Data Center Podcast. Now podcast. First question, just drop my questions on the floor, which is not very helpful, but I'm pretty sure the first question is does the data center industry have an image problem or does it have no image at all? Russell.

2:05SPEAKER_05:I think uh I think it's fair to say we used to have no image at all. Um I don't think it's very long ago that nobody knew anything about data centers or had a clue about who we were, what we did, why it was important. Uh, but that there's now, I think, a lot of press around what we do, and we're not controlling the narrative, that's for sure. So there's quite a lot of lazy journalism about data centers and how we're hoovering up power and hoovering up water and all the bad things, all the terrible things we do, um, and not enough about the good stuff and the reason why what we do is important.

2:38SPEAKER_05:Uh, so yeah, I think there is, we do have an image. I don't think it's as good as it should be, and I think we should be doing more as an industry overall to just talk about why we're good and the benefits we bring, not just in kind of like the macro level in terms of all the stuff we enable, but locally. The every data center that ever gets built now has got local community uh benefits. So we're we're building enabling works in all the communities we operate in.

3:04SPEAKER_05:There's um apprenticeship schemes, there's all sorts of really good stuff happening, and we don't really talk about it much. We talk to each other about it, but we don't talk about it beyond the scope of our industry, and we definitely should be doing more of that.

3:15SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we're great at talking amongst ourselves. We are like this, really. That's a bit, but hopefully this message will go out. I was saying that I was thinking this is what we're doing now. Exactly that. But we will get this message out. And hoodie, obviously, what's your view on perception?

3:28SPEAKER_04:I I probably echo what what you said there. Uh I I think you know, one of my things every time I'm in a cab in London is like when the cabby says, Oh, mate, what do you do? Like, you know, I work in a data center. Do you know what that is? No, no, mate, ain't got a clue. Well, it runs your life. So I try and uh you know, I try and do that. Yeah, and your cab, right? And that's how you get paid. Um, so I I try and do that. I think the perception um, you know, is getting better, um, but we've got a long way to go.

3:54SPEAKER_04:And, you know, the as you said about the bad press, you know, how many data centers do actually use water for cooling, adiabatic cooling, right? It was a thing many years ago when it, you know, everyone thought it was going to be the route to efficiency, but things have changed, right? Um, so you know, again, that's a complete misconception around you know what what data centers do.

4:13SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I annoyed all the golfers not long ago by saying, Do you know how much water golf courses use? Should we close all the golf courses if we if we're closing all the data centers? And then suddenly people start to realise that it's it's not the big problem that they think it is. Look at other industries as well. Rory, you're in PR. What's your view on perception?

4:30SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I have a I guess a slightly different view to your good selves on this one. So um, in terms of the perception of the data center industry, I would argue that yes, there is more news these days, more interest in data centers, primarily because of the growth of the industry, AI infrastructure investment going in. And yes, with that, there's a lot of bad press. Um, but equally, I think the negative press is actually a good thing. I actually think it's an opportunity to engage, to open up doors.

4:59SPEAKER_03:You know, you were talking about water a little while ago. Last week, we had the BBC at one of our clients' sites. They wanted to talk about uh literally addressing some of the myths, making sure that basically the the general public, their viewers, had a better understanding of what a data centre does, how it enables their lives, water, energy consumption on the top of the list. And then, equal to that, today you've got a news story breaking about data centres in Scotland or AI data centres in Scotland consuming 280 million bottles of water a year.

5:31SPEAKER_03:Like I when someone jumped on it on LinkedIn and talked about exactly, right? It seems bonkers, and and on that note, that was put out by Scottish Water. So scapegoating. But the point I'm trying to make with all of this is that actually I think that's an opportunity for data centre operators in Scotland to get in touch and say, hey, come come in, get involved, and we'll show you actually what we do and the technology that they use. There's some water in Scotland, right?

5:54SPEAKER_03:It rains every day.

5:56SPEAKER_04:And they don't have it so much, so the idea about it cooling never kicks in anyway, right?

6:00SPEAKER_06:Ideal climate. We'll talk about Scotland later, actually, in the next in the next video.

6:05SPEAKER_03:Yeah, true.

6:06SPEAKER_06:It's definitely an area of interest.

6:08SPEAKER_03:For sure. Yeah, exactly. Mo we'll we'll uh we'll go into that a bit more. So, chaps, you have been in the data centre industry for quite some time. No disrespect intended, and we then have to talk to it. Especially you, Andy, but um, you'll have seen a lot of change in that time, right? You know, what was perception like when you began work in the industry and how has that changed?

6:30SPEAKER_04:Um, so let's go back to to day one, right? When I was uh on shift with Fred Frintstone and Barney Rubble, right? Uh a long, long time ago. Um good engineers. I I I started life in the I started life in the post office um in mechanisation. And we actually had a data center in the post office for uh transferring postcodes onto layers, and that was the first my first you know view of a conroom or whatever, and it was hardwired with a with a with a big disc drum in the middle.

6:59SPEAKER_04:Um, then moved on uh into the banking industry um to a lovely building just over the road there, um, where we had an on-premise data center for trading, and that's kind of where the data center industry was born out of. You know, we had we had the IBM's and those people that were providing backup sites for other industries, but real critical infrastructure come out of the out of the banking industry. Um and I had um, you know, sort of 21 wonderful years working in the banking industry doing that before you know we went from you know uh on-premise data centers and then to enterprise data centers.

7:32SPEAKER_04:And now obviously people are uh moving, you know, when the cloud started, people are now moving a lot of their financial services into uh to public cloud uh that that's controlled. Um, but um, but yeah, no, that's you know, I've seen a lot of change through that through that time. Um and then obviously then you know moving into when I was at um you know uh Pure and then at Yonder doing real hyperscale stuff. Um it's been been a hell of a journey.

7:59SPEAKER_05:This feels a bit like when I were a lad. Yeah. That's why we're in a pub. That's what we talk about in POPs. I was just thinking actually as you were talking then. Um you mentioned comms rooms. Like the original name for IX Europe, which was where I started doing all of this 25 years ago, was Comms Room. Yeah. Uh that was my idea. Uh, thankfully, we didn't go with it. Uh we went with IX Europe, which made a little bit more sense than Comms Room. But at that point, there wasn't really a lot of delineation between a comms room and a data center.

8:27SPEAKER_05:You thought they were kind of the same thing. And I think probably the fundamentally the biggest thing that's changed for me is is dinner party conversation is a lot easier. Because when when people used to say, What do you do? And I'd say data centers would be like nothing, nothing. And you say it's like a big room full of computers, like, well, why would you want one of those? So, well, it's like where the internet lives, and they'd be like, Do you think that's gonna catch on?

8:49SPEAKER_05:Like, well, you know, it's got a sh it's got a shot, and here we are now, and we just mentioned this in the press a lot more, so people know about data centers. Um, and I think when you can like your cab conversation, you talk to people about how embedded everyday life is, yeah, and how everybody communicates with a data with multiple data centers every day. Every device in every person's pocket is communicating with data centers all the time, and none of the stuff we take for granted works without it.

9:15SPEAKER_05:And I think that there's a bit more of understanding about that now, but I still think most people think it's just by magic, and then you and it's just it just sort of happens, and it's like you know, you turn a tap on water comes out, you plug a thing in, electricity floods into what the device that's plugged into it. You've just got you know, you ask a teenager in the modern world, would you choose what do you what's more important, water or wifi?

9:36SPEAKER_05:You know, it's like they're gonna think about that for a while. So I think there is there is a yeah, there is a difference, and of course the industry is totally different, totally different. I mean, when we started doing this, nobody really knew what data centers were or how they worked, or how to build them or operate them or anything else. Least of all us, we were doing it. Uh, and I think the difference now is we all actually know what we're doing, which is obviously quite helpful.

9:56SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean I I actually refer to the the data center as the fourth utility um because we'd all be lost without it, right? So uh, and and one of the one of the major changes I've seen from you know going from enterprise data into cloud um is basically back in the day, you know, um all of the resilience was built into the M ⁇ E infrastructure because the failover was never there. The the synchronous replication in data centers from trading platforms was never there.

10:22SPEAKER_04:So it was all-premise single points of failure, which is where the Uptime Institute built like the tiering factors on you know where you you know how you would how you would engineer your building. Um, so yeah, that's that's been a massive change now with like you know, with hyperscalers building AZs um with synchronous replication and third copy sites. So that's you know, from when I first started, you know, you had single points of failure in the financial services, and then they went, as I said, out you know, out to Slau and took everyone out to Slough um and uh you know for disaster recovery.

10:50SPEAKER_04:But now there's the there's the opportunity to fail over from a you know from a cloud point of view.

10:55SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think, but also just in terms of what we thought then was resilient, yeah, versus what we think is M plus one was amazing, right? Well, is you got another one? Uh and obviously as time's gone on, that's all changed, yeah. So, and of course, densities and everything else that's happened in the our industry. Everybody here knows all about all this stuff, so there's not a lot of point going into it, but it it is when you've when we first just for context, when we first started IHURA, we were selling one and a half KVA cabinets.

11:25SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Which, I mean, it's a kettle, you know, not even a kettle, it's half a kettle. Uh uh, you know, relative to where we are right now, uh, with you know multiple hundred hundreds of watts in uh uh in cabinets and even potentially megawatt cabinets, it it's uh it's you know a whole wholly different world to to where we started this thing.

11:44SPEAKER_04:And using raised floors as well, right? We were raised floors. Oh, yeah, so no one took cables out, so the the floor used to rock when you walked across it.

11:51SPEAKER_05:Oh, it's the telly house.

11:53SPEAKER_04:No one was brave enough to take the cables out, and then we we thought it was a good idea to use cooling under the floor that was full of cable, so the cooling never got to the equipment back in the day, right? Yes, yes.

12:03SPEAKER_03:But going back to those days, like the industry was secretive by nature. Yeah, like there was no perception, right? And I know when I got into data centers, or this is 18 years this year, I think we've been working in PR in this industry. And certainly naively from my side, I was like, why does anyone care about any of this stuff? No, we we had no Chat GPT, no one was streaming games at that point or playing FIFA online, or even there was no Netflix.

12:28SPEAKER_03:And actually, what I realised now is that this industry enables everything and is honestly one of the most exciting places to be. So, from my perspective, you know, perceptions changed dramatically. When I started out, we were talking to industry publications, trades, all of those things, and now we've got Sky News, ITV, BBC, Wired all banging on the door, all wanting to cover our clients, all wanting to cover infrastructure investments, AI. Yeah, it's been nuts.

12:55SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and on that, and like you mentioned that article earlier in Scholar, like do you think AI has been a good thing for perception or a bad thing? Because everything now goes back to AI, doesn't it? Like every every data centre is an AI data center in the news. And then they say, Oh, do you know how much one GPT search uses compared to one email? It's things so that's put more pressure onto the perception of the industry, hasn't it? It's become more public, but also a lot of that straight away pushes towards the negative side of it rather than the positive.

13:24SPEAKER_04:I I think we've all everyone in the room that that's working in in the industry at the moment, has everyone seen a slowdown as all of the hyperscalers work out what they're going to do from an AI point of view. And it's always been a race, you know, to the top to be first to you know the first implementer of AI technology. Um and in my previous role when I was like CIO of Yonder, we we've done some amazing stuff for some hyperscale companies. Um, but within that design period of like seven to eight months, it changed five times.

13:54SPEAKER_04:I literally changed five times from a you know from a you know a 20 kilowatt rack to an 80 kilowatt rack to a 140 kilowatt rack, you know. Um so and and but alongside that, the cloud market is still carrying on. The organic growth in cloud and the demand for that carries on. You know, we're all you know, whilst there are applications that are using AI to do every you know, to do the new sort of sexy stuff that we're doing, the uh, you know, the the cloud and and the general public that are still using, you know, storing photos of their cats in diagnosed day to day, that's still going on.

14:28SPEAKER_04:Um, and so that organic growth in you know with the hyperscalers will continue.

14:32SPEAKER_06:What about when you enter new regions? That's the other thing as well. Is a perception different if you I know you did a lot of work in Malaysia and I know you're looking at different regions as well. Do you think some regions are more welcoming to the industry than the regions where, like Slough, for example, you know, that there's a there's such a bulk of industry already there. Obviously, I think we don't need more in Slough, do we, really? But if you're going somewhere where they see it as economic game or community game, do they have a different perception?

14:59SPEAKER_05:Yeah, definitely. I think certainly that's what we've seen in some of the markets we're operating in. You see a real real difference between those kind of more established markets where actually sometimes data centers are perceived as being a problem and and a desire to not see any more of them, to be to you know, countries and and uh municipalities where they see it as absolutely fundamental to digitization um uh and economic development. So there's a much more uh positive approach.

15:26SPEAKER_05:There's a more um accommodating approach when it comes to permitting, you have more access, more uh there's more access to power, uh, and just a generally, generally a more welcoming experience for people trying to build and you know and operate data centers.

15:40SPEAKER_04:Um and and like you know, the the the projects I did, you know, we under in um in Malaysia was very much a spillover from the moratorium on power in and around Singapore. Um and we were, you know, we were taken there from the ambassador of J Corp, which was the Malaysian government, and they were like, let's go to this palm or forest in the middle of nowhere and and and start up a day, you know, a data center park, which was phenomenal. And uh, you know, and and they supported us and backed us all the way because they saw the benefit of that, you know, to their to their company, uh, to their country.

16:13SPEAKER_04:Loads of renewable energy from from hydro, um, and and they allowed us to build a 450 MVA substation on our site. You know, that's a 300 megawatt site there. Um, you know, and and and we we you know we sold the first building straight away, 98 megawatts, one building. So, you know, that uh and again all of that over there is AI, where you know they're not looking at latency issues from from the Singapore financial markets, it's very much you know an AI play that that's going on in in Jahor Barat, like you know.

16:42SPEAKER_06:And they focus a lot on skills as well, don't they? I'm going well off piece here, by the way. These questions have not been planned, but um they focus a lot on skills, don't they? So a country like Malaysia will have a real big focus on the skills development that comes as a result of this investment. So we're training engineers, we're training other people. Whereas when it's um when you see it in the press in say the UK, it's more, oh, it will only employ six people, or whatever, and it'll employ thousand people in construction and then six people when it's finished, or whatever the data is, which again straight away puts you onto a negative platform, doesn't it?

17:13SPEAKER_06:I mean it's in those countries they're more focused on the positivity that 100%.

17:17SPEAKER_04:And you you know, you don't run a 98 megawatt data center with six people, no. Um, you know, it's 24 by 7, 365 shift guys, loss of equipment to maintain. Um, and uh yeah, there was there was a big crew over there for you know for both Yonder and and for CBRE and for the client. Um and you know, at the height of construction there, there were over 2,000 employees on site working, you know, day shifts and night shifts. Um and and another good thing that that's you know what the where the J Corp uh picked the site was you know in Jahor Barat and all around there, you've got really good um connections with universities from the UK, so like Reading University are over there.

17:54SPEAKER_04:Um so there's a big opportunity there for upskilling people, which is what we were what we were doing, like, you know, and we were actually employing, no, we were employing local local labour and upskilling them.

18:04SPEAKER_03:I think it also comes down to like how progressive those regions are and having backing from governments as well, the want to work with data center operators, recognising the value, recognising the what the technology can do for the economy and actually what it can enable long term in terms of growth and profitability and all those sorts of things. I mean, if you look at what's happening over at Start Campus, like the government there, we were there earlier this year, Andy.

18:26SPEAKER_03:The government there is backing that 100%. And look at the announcements that came out this week, you know, 12,600, 12,600 of Nvidia's latest GPUs being deployed there alongside Microsoft. I mean, what a massive vindication of the business case. It's like phenomenal. And that's what we need more of in terms of perception of the industry. You I believe you need the government to back the industry and and to explain the role of data centers in the economy.

18:51SPEAKER_05:You've also got to tell the story around the the broader employment um uh piece in the indirect. Yeah, yeah. There's it's it's about you might you might have like, I don't know, 30 or 40 people actually directly employed in the data center, but the supply chain goes way beyond that in terms of the the the employment opportunities they've created and this and the skills training that has to go with that. Uh as those, and we've seen we're seeing this in you know Milan and Madrid markets that are growing fast, and they're you know, they're kind of growing faster than than than the available sort of talent pool, which I know you're you're willed and right, yeah.

19:24SPEAKER_05:It it so it's actually an economic opportunity for the for the for those for geographies that are actually recognizing data centers can can deliver something economically, not just in terms of the digitization piece, but actually it's a whole new sector, it's a whole new employment sector that drives and even down to the stuff that's not necessarily specific to to our industry, like you know, cleaning and catering, and there's a whole world of other things that go into supporting a data center that that are have an economic benefit, and you have enough of them, then so all of a sudden you've got thousands of people being employed, and particularly in regions that were in areas where you know um employment is an issue.

20:03SPEAKER_05:So we're you know, I think we we we bring more than than I think is evident, and all that we actually really talk about.

20:09SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and from a perception perspective, other than doing podcasts in pubs, which is obviously a great way to change the perception, more of them, I say. What what else can we do to get on the front foot? You know, the industry does need to get on the front foot. Rory in National Data Center Day, which Spa are heavily involved with is about trying to get that unified message, the industry really talking about the things we're talking about. But what do you think we can do and everyone in here can do to get on the front foot?

20:37SPEAKER_04:Talk to more cab drivers?

20:39SPEAKER_06:Yeah, more cab drivers. Everyone book a cab home, you've got to talk about data centers. Don't close the pubs.

20:46SPEAKER_05:I I I think I think part of it is like a bit of an industry coordination, uh, so that we actually get as to your point earlier, Rory is we get on the front foot so that we tell the good news story before the bad news story can get out there. So, you know, even if it's as straightforward as, you know, here's a whole lot of brilliant data centers enabling all of these amazing services that don't consume any water.

21:10SPEAKER_03:I think also great, but I think also it's being comfortable with the bad stories as well, because we'll we'll never control that either.

21:19SPEAKER_05:Yeah, exactly. Once you once you if you're if you're known about, then there's gonna be good and bad. Exactly.

21:24SPEAKER_06:It's sexy at the moment. I think I heard someone say that no one ever seen recently, but the industry is sexy at the moment for the media. Like you know that, yeah, that's why you're busy. But like the media wants wants people to click, don't they? And and at the moment, bad news about data centers get clicks. That's the reality. Okay. So we're always gonna have that challenge. True, yeah.

21:43SPEAKER_04:While the industry is big, you know, car car manufacturing and pharma uses a lot of power and cooling, but you don't see people moaning about that, do they?

21:51SPEAKER_06:And uh was it like cotton, something like this ridiculous. Golf courses again. I'm gonna get uh sorry to any golfers, but This is where the campaign begins. Yeah, close golf courses. But no, it's it's a I think that messaging though, isn't it? And like you said, about collaboration, the industry's not great at collaboration. I think it's miles better than it was. You know, even doing things like this was difficult three or four years ago because it competitors would not talk together.

22:14SPEAKER_06:Whereas now you can have a conversation in a pub about the industry, and there's no there's no worries about what you're talking about because we have you know we've opened the curtains a little bit. But how do we get that message across the industry? What can we do? Need a good PR company. That's a good start. That would be a great start.

22:33SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, it's me. It's definitely not uh not just uh the job of one PR company. I'll I'll yeah, I I've got no issues with saying that. Um, my view on this is that it starts with bringing people together. But fundamentally, you have to get different businesses, even businesses that compete in the same room and then get different decision makers, clums people, C-suite leaders, and marketing people to work out what are the right stories to tell and what the message is that we need to bring as an industry from a unified perspective.

23:03SPEAKER_03:I was in I was at Digital Infrastructure Island a couple of weeks ago. We had the exact same conversation. You guys know firsthand all of the issues that they're having out there in Ireland in terms of energy, moratorium, and negative press. Like, yeah, so it starts with bringing people together and then it starts with making sure that you you lead from the top down, I believe.

23:21SPEAKER_04:And and Andy, the stuff that we've been doing at the UTC, right? Um with the students, you know, that was a that was an incredible bold move by a few of us um back in COVID to do that. Um, but the the response has been phenomenal. Um, and the people that have come into that, you know, including yourselves, um, to to bring the next generation through and and you know get the education to their parents at parents' evenings and you know, all those opportunities to do that um has been great and uh and long may it continue.

23:52SPEAKER_04:And that's where we we need to start. And once those children understand, you know, kind of what runs their life and what happens, um, you know, like the the the you know, as you know, like you go and do the the the the challenge days with them and and the first thing they say is well how much do you earn it? Like, you know, and it's um you know and I and I talk um you know coming from a uh I was an apprenti apprentice like back in the day and uh and and you know they can relate to that.

24:16SPEAKER_04:So when you when you talk to them, I was an apprentice and I started on the tools, and then all of a sudden I, you know, I was a COO of a big data center company, they go, wow, like you know, and and and it really resonates with them, doesn't it? You know, you've seen it firsthand, Andy.

24:29SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think yeah, young people and new people to this industry is a big driver on it. Like I always say young people care. That's the key. I think they actually care about what they're doing, and they do change the perception because they're more focused on sustainability, power, etc. They they actually give a shit, whereas a lot of people, I think, have the perception that the industry doesn't really care. So if we bring more people in that do, that really have that passion, I think that'll make a big difference.

24:53SPEAKER_06:And yeah, the the kids at UTC are they're amazing. I think they're when they do the challenge days, uh what they come up with is better than anything I could come up with. Uh did you tell them how much you earn?

25:02SPEAKER_03:No. Are we going back to the questions at this? Yeah, I think we're going to the questions. All right.

25:08SPEAKER_06:So yeah, the uh I'm gonna skip past the we are gonna go to the audience questions as well at the end, so you will get the chance to ask Hoodie and Russ a question, not me.

25:17SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do should we carry on with the final one, shall we? So uh so hoodie, you've obviously worked with developers, operators, end users now part of the supply chain. Do you think each part of that has an issue to solve in terms of perception and the challenges that say for a construction company very different from a data center operator?

25:37SPEAKER_04:I I would I would say yes. Um, there are subtle differences within um the message that you you get across from from where you are. So obviously now being at AVK um and and looking at what we're doing with microgrids um to you know really provide the next solution for you know the failing utility companies around the world. Um that's a completely different story to you know a hyperscaler going in to a local community and disrupting and taking over greenbelt land or or whatever.

26:10SPEAKER_04:Um, but I think we all have a responsibility to play a role in that journey to make it easier for the hyperscaler, who obviously is, you know, at the end of the day, the the the ultimate um payer of the bills and and the and the to develop the business. We all have a we all have a responsibility to do the right thing along that journey. Um, you know, carbon reduction in construction and you know, carbon reduction um, you know, uh through the original installation, the products you select, um, those things can't be determined by the end user.

26:41SPEAKER_04:They need to everyone needs to be on the journey with that. Um, you know, where where I live out in Essex, you know, in the local community there, there's a there's a huge plot of land there that's been, as you know, Andrew on my doorstep, right? And uh the the actual you know, the local people have been up in arms um uh about what's happening, but they're sat right next to a huge interconnector that is vacant and ready, you know, ready for for for power and industry.

27:06SPEAKER_04:So um yeah, I think you got the uh cordlums. Yeah, I have, yeah. But no, I I I do I do think it is, I I do think there's a different there there is a different uh there's a different story, but I think ultimately it all ties up to make it easier for the the end goal for the hyperscaler um to to deliver.

27:28SPEAKER_06:And as a developer, similar similar views.

27:33SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think um we've got a I I don't know, I think I I just I think probably if I was just I was just thinking as we were just talking around about the industry and about uh where we're where we are and the the the different elements of of what we're trying to do. And actually a lot of the challenges boil down to the same thing, which is recruitment and about about hiring. You know, we're aptos hiring right now, uh as you know, SARSA recruit. Yeah, yeah.

28:00SPEAKER_05:Uh and it and it's and it's back to your point, hoodie, about about the next generation and about um about the kind of the apprenticeships and about uh uh bringing in new people into the into the industry and helping to try and grow it. Uh, because you know part of our part of our challenge comes as to it's like we're really gonna continue to scale and we're really gonna make a difference and change perceptions and all the rest of it. We need to get bigger.

28:25SPEAKER_05:And that's probably the hardest, biggest challenge we've faced right now. And I'd say that probably goes across the whole, whether it's supply chain or whether it's ghosts from whether it's operator or whether it's hyperscaler. You know, we're all we're all kind of looking at the the same the same thing.

28:39SPEAKER_06:It goes from the trades on the ground, like all the way up, you know, and the engineers is yeah, it's it's literally the whole problem, it is a big challenge. But again, perception is a big part of that, isn't it? If we make the industry attractive, we get the message right, yeah, more people will want to join it, and that that is key.

28:51SPEAKER_05:I mean I think tonight's but part of that, I think, really, is like making this an attractive, appealing option. It's like this one's this should be a destination. I mean, I call it other industries doing podcasts in a pub. And by the way, I quite like the idea of I mean it's the first time in my life, I don't know about you, but it's sexy. Yeah. I wasn't actually to get it from you, Andy, but um Can you get that in the press tomorrow?

29:14SPEAKER_06:Andy Davis said data centres are sexy. I'll do my best. Quote unquote. There's the line.

29:19SPEAKER_05:Yeah.

29:20SPEAKER_03:So talking of that then, uh making destinations, uh sorry, making data centres a destination, should people care about the industry and why?

29:31SPEAKER_04:In in in what respects?

29:33SPEAKER_03:In terms well, in terms of perception, first of all, and then in terms of let's call it let's say perception, then attracting talent. Why should people care?

29:43SPEAKER_05:But I think people should care. But I think it's just back to what we're saying earlier on about being embedded in everyday life, right? We are fundamentally what we what we do enables everything. We're we're kind of we're unseen, we're largely still fairly largely unknown, apart from sometimes the bad stuff. But but fundamentally, without what we do, not nothing works in in the modern world. So, and I think part of that is telling the story about what we're enabling and what we're making work.

30:13SPEAKER_05:You know, we used to do, and I was in a previous life, around apprenticeship schemes and did, and we'd do like um the introduction to work days, you know, when you've got a bunch of teenagers in a room at like nine o'clock in the morning, which is a terrible thing to do to them, and brains aren't working properly, and you've got to try and engage them. And the way we found it was best to do it was just sort of, you know, it's almost as simple as like, you know, you've got one of you got a phone, you know, do you use you use Snapchat?

30:35SPEAKER_05:Do you know do you know how it works? And then when you start to talk, those it's kind of oh, it's kind of cool, right? What we do enables all that stuff to work. So rather than being like I work in a big room full of computers, it's actually um doing stuff that makes a difference in lots of different ways, and and even like more, you know, less kind of sort of frippery than than that around, you know, medical research and all this, all the things that are enabled through data centers that that are not necessarily talked about is you make it interesting.

31:05SPEAKER_05:You know, if you give people the the kind of effectively the use cases for what we're doing, then they can talk about it to other people about and I do this and this is why it's cool. You made it relevant. Yeah, absolutely. It's making it relevant to people, especially young people, as we're trying to bring more young people into the industry.

31:22SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think it's all it's what the what the industry does rather than what it is, isn't it? Like a room full of computers is boring, you know, like to most people. It's not to geeks that enjoy rooms full of computers, but to most people it it is quite boring. Whereas what it does is massive when you actually go into detail.

31:36SPEAKER_04:And it and it it offers like um diversification, like right across, you know, from you know, from the construction industry, you know, right the way through from operations and ME companies and logistics companies, security companies. Um, so there's there's a plethora of positions there that can be, you know, fulfilled by loads of different people from diverse backgrounds and you know.

31:58SPEAKER_05:And I think you're I think the story you told of, you know, about where you started as an apprentice and then up as a COO is is there's there's a lot of, you know, I think again, I think about my previous life, the thing we're probably most proud of is all the careers that got built out of it. So many people who joined to do a thing, you know, working as a technician in a data center and end up as a as a chief of this or a vice president. There's some people in this room actually who have got a V in front of their titles who started off working in as you know as a as a as a technician in the data center.

32:27SPEAKER_05:So the this it's enabled a lot of careers, and I think actually we should tell those stories because it's like there's a route here to to to some really cool stuff. Yeah, you definitely need need role models for everything.

32:37SPEAKER_06:And again, UTC is a good example of that, isn't it? I think it's time to go to the floor for questions, which is quite a high-risk move, I think. But for some reason, I thought it was a good idea. So where's anyone got any questions? You can ask any of us anything and we can decide whether we answer it or not.

32:56SPEAKER_02:Thoroughly enjoying the podcast so far, guys. Um I heard a stat that if you took all of the cars off the road today, you'd actually only reduce global emissions by 20%. The rest are coming from acrylics, manufacturing data centers. Interested to get kind of mainly COO and CEO all perspectives on what are the kind of sustainability measures you guys are seeing in the industry, what are the kind of trends kind of gearing towards that focus with that uh taking into account and let the experts answer that one.

33:27SPEAKER_02:Do you want to go?

33:28SPEAKER_06:I think so. I was saying before we carry, I think the industry does some amazing things, it just doesn't talk about it enough. I will say that. Yeah.

33:34SPEAKER_04:So I I I go back to my my previous sort of life in in at Pure and at Yonder. I think sustainability um and operating efficiently and effectively with your plant selection, um, the PUE, you know, the the uh addressing the water issues was front and centre of everything we've done from a design perspective. Um and yes, we were big consumers of power, but we we consumed it efficiently. Um and and now looking at where I am now in AVK, we're uh you know, and one of the reasons I joined AVK was to go back to the front of the industry and really trying to help with the problem that we all have with power is to to you know to build sustainable power and and you know some of the stuff we're doing with the microgrids and working with you know um green energy and and you know green green initiatives.

34:22SPEAKER_04:It's really addressing it. So I think it's on the agenda for everyone. Um, you know, I literally today I come off of a presentation from my sustainability team on the initiatives that we're going to launch. You know, we we launched the carbon capture thing that we're doing now with, you know, um as of today. Um so I I think there is there is there is absolutely a passion to to do the right thing. Um, you know, and I obviously I'm not aware of the numbers that you quoted, so I appreciate that you know you saying that.

34:48SPEAKER_04:But it's um, yeah, I mean it there's definitely a passion to to do the right thing.

34:53SPEAKER_05:Oh, for sure. I think excuse me, I think it's um it's gone from being something we never really thought about at all when we first started doing this, to being afterthought, to being something we cared about, to being the most important thing. Uh and and I think partly it's the most important thing because I think we become more aware of it and we generally, genuinely care about it. Uh you want to be good stewards of the digital economy as well as good stewards of the environment.

35:19SPEAKER_05:But um, but I think also even if we didn't care about it, our customers really care about it. So even if we didn't, we'd still have to. Um so I think when you've got those kind of drivers of an industry that that's putting this front and center, a a customer base that is also using it as key criteria. So if I look at when we used to, um, you know, if we think about data center site selection criteria from years ago, it didn't really matter. You didn't really give much thought to where the power was coming from or how uh or what the what the what the generation was.

35:49SPEAKER_05:Whereas now it's it's it's one of the most fundamental parts of the decision-making process. And we've got such focus on energy efficiency and building to low PUEs, as you say earlier. And I think you look at the efficiency of a modern data center, it's pretty phenomenal relative to where we started. It's it's it's amazing what we're able to get done in terms of just like when you think about the physics of it all, it's it's it's actually pretty impressive.

36:14SPEAKER_04:I I think when you know when the uptime first uh brought out PUE, um, I think there was a lot of people that were hiding under their desks and suitably embarrassed um, you know, before the data center industry really took off that you know, they come out of financial services because there was never a focus on that, you know, and you know, there were there were PUEs there that were three and four in lots of people's facilities because of the inefficiency of the plant selection, you know, how they designed the building, they just designed it for the operation of the building without any you know thought process around energy efficiency.

36:46SPEAKER_04:They were banks, they had lots of money, they didn't care about the energy bill, but now like the whole perception and and because because the facilities are so huge, you know, you know, and back in the day, you know, if you had a 10 megawatt enterprise data center, that was huge in Tlau. And and you know, some of the projects I've been involved with, as I said, 300 megawatt sites, 500 megawatt sites, you know, single buildings at 98 megawatts, just phenomenal.

37:08SPEAKER_04:So I think that's where the why there's such uh a big focus on it now, because it's a concentrated um amount, isn't it? You know, in in small areas as a scale.

37:17SPEAKER_05:It's a scale is does change, I think. But it used to be a challenge to get customers to put their servers in the rack, like it's just them way around. Yeah. So you have hot. There was no hot old cold aisles. It was like a big washing machine looking at different directions.

37:29SPEAKER_06:And I think a lot of it's driven by the consumer as well, and consumers have changed as generations change, and people kids care more about the environment than people did years ago. It's just the reality of it, and sustainability is big on children's agenda, which is a good thing. So hopefully that will drive change. Yeah. I think we've got time for probably one more or two more, maybe.

37:49SPEAKER_00:Hi. Um, I'd just be interested to know because obviously you've all been you're all established, you've been in this industry for a really long time. Um, I'd like to understand a little bit about your perceptions about diversity, um, really. Um, not just in terms of, I mean, great panel guys, but you are all of a similar demographic. Sorry to point out the elephant in the room.

38:11SPEAKER_01:We did talk about it. That's that's pretty harsh or roary. That's a hard one to audio again to see.

38:16SPEAKER_00:However, I just wondered, has there been a change? Um, I'm very passionate about female representation. Big up, ladies. Um, and I just wondered what your particularly Andy, what you've seen in terms of the changes there. I think like wider diversity, Paul.

38:34SPEAKER_06:Firstly, you're doing a great job trying to highlight for you. So critical uh so we'll get you back on the panel later, but critical careers, you know, is a is a great thing that you've done for the industry. So well done. Um, from my perspective, I'm a dad of three girls and massively passionate about females in the industry, diversity as a whole. But I always say when I go to events now, the demographic is changing, definitely, but nowhere to the level that you'd want it to.

39:05SPEAKER_06:And I think some companies are doing some amazing things in regards to attracting a more diverse talent, others are talking a good game and not really doing a lot, and then there's some that are not doing much at all. Um, STEM's a big problem, full stop, and we are, you know, construction's a huge problem as well. It's not just in data centres that these industries have a challenge. So, how you solve it is a the million dollar or billion dollar question, I think.

39:29SPEAKER_06:Just highlighting great people in the industry is a big part of that, but also I think investments needed from the top in order to have a real drive on it. It needs money, and that's the reality of it. You need money to get the message into schools, like again, like Hoodie was saying about UTC and things, you know, it's still largely males, isn't it, in the in the school. Um, so trying to get the message through to a different demographic is difficult.

39:54SPEAKER_06:So I think having conversations like the ones we had in Cannes, it helps when it's in Cannes and the things you're doing does have a huge impact. So don't underestimate the impact you're having, but also we can probably all do a lot more, I think, individually.

40:06SPEAKER_03:Just to add to that, I think it's a little bit more than just diversity and female representation as well. Like I think we need to think of it or look at it from the perspective of equality as well. So, however, someone chooses to identify, make it a safe space, make it an attractive industry, so that actually we really do have a diverse and very broad talent pool. And uh, exactly as Andy said, the work that you're doing is amazing. We need more role models and people who are willing to go above the parapet, people who are relatable, relevant, interesting people, and people that people gravitate towards and say, Hey, I think I could work with that person, I think I could work with that company, I think I could work in that industry.

40:48SPEAKER_06:And hopefully we can, yeah, we might all be similar demographic. Rory's a bit older than the rest of us, but hopefully we can champion it a bit as well. Like, you know, we will, I will quite happily champion it. Yeah, I'll I'll tell the people the reality of what the industry's like. So hopefully we can help. One more question.

41:07SPEAKER_01:Go for it. Okay, thank you. Um, I just wanted to ask a question about customer um perceptions today and customer perceptions looking forward. So if you think about enterprise customers, what's their view of the data center industry today and how can the data industry better serve their needs looking forward?

41:28SPEAKER_05:I think if you if you look at the there's been a fundamental shift in the in the uh enterprise compute market for data centers. So it's gone from being uh exclusively about uh servers and racks to being about how you deliver a more a more hybrid solution that allows the enterprise to hold on to some of its some of its stuff that's either just too sensitive or too difficult to move to the cloud and integrate that seamlessly with with what actually is going into the cloud.

41:59SPEAKER_05:But that's you know, that's at that kind of legacy enterprise moving from the basement into the cloud sort of market. I mean, clearly there are a lot of organizations now getting that are starting in the cloud and and and growing and scaling rapidly in the cloud. So you know that that plays very much into the into the growth in the industry that that we're seeing. So I think you know it's one of the reasons why we're doing APTO is what we could what I could see was that there's phenomenal growth in the in the cloud compute space and the enterprise space is a lot harder to operate in, I think, now.

42:32SPEAKER_05:I think it's it's much more it's much more challenging. And there are there, you know, there are a couple of players who who do a very good job of that. Um, but I think the the the you know the phenomenal growth in our industry is is definitely coming from enabling continued growth in cloud and growth in AI inference and and and for the you know for the larger, slightly more remote sites in uh machine learning.

42:53SPEAKER_04:And and some of some of the stuff that I saw, I know it was quite a while ago now, like 10 years ago, when I was in the in the banking industry at Barclays and at JP Morgan, there's a massive reluctance to put that type of stuff into third-party data centers. Um, some of it's due to, and again, I'm not a technologist, I'm I'm a electrician from the East End of London, right? But um I I I I used to I used to feel the nervousness of the IT community that wanted to um, you know, move their move the services into into cloud infrastructure.

43:26SPEAKER_04:And uh even to the point when we when we built enterprise data centers just for for for ourselves, and they were like so nervous that it went off premise because of you know, they were worried about communications and latency and all that sort of stuff from a from a trade exchange. Um, but I I you know I was I was at an event last night with some former colleagues, and uh they were saying that you know loads of that now is going into, you know, as you as you rightly said, you know, they've built the confidence, they've taken that leap of faith.

43:53SPEAKER_04:Um they could never keep up with investment that was required. Um, you know, they're banks, right? They're not technologies, uh technology companies. Um, and you know, and and people move on in those environments as well. So the people that wrote the code and the programs and had moved to another bank, and and they were sat with this box in a room were in a way that you know I remember doing shutdowns as a you know, as the engineer for JP Morgan, and there's yeah, hoodie lights over to you from the technology team, and I walk around the comms rule on the data center, and it's still five boxes were in a way, and everyone's looking at each other going, like, what does this do?

44:24SPEAKER_04:Like, you know. So uh I think now that it's more structured, and as I said, the resilience is being built into the IT and the ME there is you know, is belt and braces. I think people are getting more and more confident with we being able to do that. Um, but I I can't I can't comment on the percentage of what's gone, you know. I'm I'm 10 years away from that. Like, but yeah, it was it was always a nervous, you know. I used to call them server huggers, like the guys.

44:49SPEAKER_04:They they were very anxious about you know, uh about the the servers leaving their building.

44:55SPEAKER_06:And I think that's a wrap for this one. So there is food, I believe, and everyone's probably getting a bit edgy. But hoodie, thank you. Russell, thank you. Rory, thanks as always. Thanks, guys. Thank you,