It’s always a pleasure to watch OCOLO’s fearless leader and DC industry trailblazer Tony Rossabi take the stage to discuss the state of the industry – especially when he’s surrounded by colleagues with comparable experience and wisdom to offer!
Today, Tony Rossabi took the stage bright and early at the DATA CENTER INVESTMENT CONFERENCE & EXPO (DICE): NORTHEAST to discuss the state of the northeast DC market stretching from Philadelphia to Boston.
The panel discussion was moderated by Francis Sheng, Co-Founder & CFO, PDM – Power and Data Management and Tony’s fellow panelists included Bob DeSantis, CEO of 365 Data Centers, Phillip Koblence, Co-Founder & COO, NYI, Jeffrey Moerdler, Member, Mintz and Ray Sidler, Co-Founder & CEO, DataVerge.
The discussion was a lively and at times humorous exchange among old hands in the industry that covered topics as far ranging as: a 30,000-foot view of the space today, M&A trends among large and mid-size data center operators, power challenges in the NE corridor and beyond, the major sea changes the DC industry has been through just over the past few years, what’s really driving DC growth, and, of course, what inning we’re in for AI.
Here are a few highlights from the OCOLO team members who attended:
AI AND not vs. Interconnect
- JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon mentioned on a webcast yesterday that the global bank now has 2,000 employees dedicated full-time to AI initiatives.
- The data center industry is painted with a broad AI brush, but the mega-campuses aren’t being built in the NYC/NJ area near where AI loads are created – they’re built where space and power are more available and at lower costs.
- Deployments near NYC are primarily interconnected, ecosystem – nodes aren’t going away and wireless won’t kill fiber anytime soon
- If anything, it’s a bonus to be in the interconnect space now and we’ll see even more site and hub build-outs going forward
- Three industries in Northeast Corridor – financial services (NYC/NJ), Healthcare/pharma (NJ), Education (PA/NYC/NJ/MA) all rely mostly on proprietary datasets – colocation not cloud
- In addition, financial regulations require that data centers cannot be within 50 miles of HQ for financial services companies – which further drives migration outside NYC but within proximity
Data Center Industry Trends:
Three major sea changes in DC just in last few years:
- Roll-up of data centers
- Power problems (constraints)
- AI boom
Many other growth drivers beyond AI for DC industry, including:
- Enterprise adoption of IT outsourcing
- Massive content generation
- Edge computing still relevant though outshone by AI
Power trends
- The US power issue is less on the generation side than the transmission side
- Need 50% more power to cool (PUE) than just a few years ago
- If we could solve the power issue, the industry would perform even better than it already is today
We are early in the first inning of AI
Biggest questions:
- How much is real and will mature and how much is hype?
- Is the land grab we’re seeing necessary?
Only time will tell in the fast-moving DC industry, which, in the words of Tony Rossabi: “resets itself every few years.”
