With the accelerating innovation of the Internet, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies, the digitization of the global economy is becoming more and more popular. In the process of digital transformation, a large number of data resources have penetrated into all areas of human social and economic activities, which emphasizes the importance and value of data centers. How to realize the infrastructure construction of comprehensive digitalization? Recently, a reporter from Guangming Online interviewed Alick Wan, the founder and CEO of EPG.
01.Data center has become the new infrastructure of digitalization
"Nowadays, data is as important as sunlight, air and water, and has become an essential basic supply for modern life. The storage and operation of these data are all carried out in the data center." Alick Wan said.
Regarding the importance of data centers, Alick Wan believes that data centers are the key infrastructure for both the economy and society. From a commercial point of view, data center is an important place for storing and interacting with huge amount of data, which guarantee the prosperous development of digital economy. As we all know, the transformation of the whole chain of traditional industries by new technologies cannot be separated from data; From a social point of view, our country has been strategically deploying the construction of "Digital China", and the optimization scale construction of digital infrastructure and digital resource system has also accelerated the process of digital development of the whole society to a large extent.
In recent years, the domestic data center industry has been developing rapidly, and the demand for the industry is also expanding. Up to now, the scale of China's digital center ranks second in the world, and the demand for data centers is still growing at an annual rate of 10%-20%. As an enterprise dedicating on modular data center construction, EPG's business has spread to more than 60 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and South America. Alick Wan said that despite the strong demand for data centers, the construction of data centers has high barriers to entry, which was mainly reflected in the construction cost and construction cycle. In China, the investment scale of building a standard data center with 3,000 cabinets is RMB 500-800 million, which is 1/2-1/3 times as much for overseas projects. Meanwhile, the construction cycle of traditional data centers lasts 24-36 months.
02. Breakthroughs in key technologies to promote energy-saving, consumption reduction and green development
As a major energy consumer, how data centers can realize the transition to green and low-carbon also poses new challenges for data center builders and operators. Alick Wan believes that data centers need to make breakthroughs in key technologies to achieve energy saving and consumption reduction.
"We are very concerned about and responsive to the national strategy of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, actively exploring solutions for building high-quality green data centers, and have been exploring with partners to supply data center power systems with green energy such as hydrogen. At the same time, we have also been continuously investing in the research of liquid cooling technology to solve the current energy consumption problem of traditional cooling systems." Alick Wan said.
In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and other departments jointly issued the notice of "Promoting the green and high-quality development of data centers, 5G and other new infrastructure due to the carbon peak and carbon neutral target ". Alick Wan believes that in recent years, the country has comprehensively promoted the strategy of " channel computing resources from the east to the west ", which not only largely promotes the circulation of IT computing and activates the vitality of the digital economy, but also saves green energy, improves energy efficiency and helps realize the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. "For this reason, we are also actively involved in it." Alick Wan said.
03. The road of data center overseas
How competitive are China's data centers globally? "It has been at the forefront of the world." Alick Wan said. In recent years, a large number of well-known Internet companies are set in China, and data centers have developed rapidly along with them, forming a complete set of supply chain. "We (are gradually) focusing our business on Southeast Asia and Europe. Among them, Southeast Asia is at the stage of rapid emerging; Europeans are gradually liberalizing this area after feeling the convenience and benefits brought by electronic." Alick Wan said.
How to make the giant data center business walk out of the light footsteps? "In order to better enhance the efficiency of data center construction and use of performance, we have put a lot of effort in data center prefabrication solutions." Alick Wan said.
Prefabrication solutions are mainly divided into product prefabrication, system prefabrication and engineering prefabrication. Product prefabrication is to integrate function modules including IT, power, standby power and chiller into standardized enclosures like containers or skid. System prefabrication is to equip with corresponding ELV (extra low voltage), HVAC(Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), lighting and fire protection systems in each module. Engineering prefabrication is to pretest modules in the factory and assemble containers on site like "building blocks".
Alick Wan said that the R&D, design, production, delivery and installation, commissioning and after-sales service of prefabricated data center modules will shorten the delivery cycle of traditional data centers from 24-36 months to 9-12 months; for overseas projects, the total construction cost will be reduced by 30-50%.
Recently, artificial intelligence has attracted much attention. In the future, what are the co-creative prospects of data centers and AI? Alick Wan believes that AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Content Generation) accelerates the demand for data processing. Data centers can provide strong arithmetic support for the development of AI; at the same time, the development of AI will also have great promotion on the construction of data centers. "We have begun the layout of edge data centers, turning large data centers into several small data centers and has linkage control through algorithms, which will greatly enhance the construction and use of data centers in the future." Alick Wan said.
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