Data Center Footprint Expands as SPOF Concerns Remain

The fat-fingered Crowdstrike/Microsoft update heard around the world continues to reverberate, focusing attention on the danger of single points of failure within specific organizations and the entire world.

Yet technology always marches onward, with every day bringing new announcements of vast new data center complexes in every corner of – you guessed it, the entire world.

Case in point: The unprepossessing university town of DeKalb, IL, located on the western outskirts of Chicagoland (and also the base of an IDCA researcher) has announced the plans of a major new data center complex to be build within the next several months. The project is so far managed by Karis Acquisitions, which acts as a beard for major vendors. DeKalb has recently seen $1.5 billion in data center development from Meta, and local sources say the new big vendor is likely Microsoft or Google.

Add to that some bullet points:

* A new 500MW complex is on the boards to be developed by NTT Global south of Frankfurt.

* More plans on the board for as much as 7GW of new data centers in the US by energy company New Era.

* A recent real-estate company report envisions 43GW worldwide data center developed by 2028.

* A new large data center was announced by Mexico's Odata for the country's Queretaro province north of Mexico City. This area has seen numerous new projects, in a nation that is lagging in IDCA Research's review of nations, and which needs to see significant new sustainable energy developed along with its ambitions to improve its data center footprint and digital infrastructure environment.

* The idea of digital twins for entire factories has taken hold – and in the case of the EU, for the entire world (a project that EU assures us will be “highly accurate” no less).

To put things into context, we can remember that the entire world consumes a steady state 2.9 terawatts (2,900 GW). So looking at a new 43GW footprint would consume 1.5 percent of that. Ambitious developers have told us that another 50GW or 100GW may in fact be put into place within the next few years.