Cloud Cover: January

The first Cloud Cover of 2025 continues where 2024 left off, with yet more cash being poured into the industry left and right.

There have already been investments left and right from Microsoft, as well as AWS, and billionaire Hussain Sajwani. 

Plus, a look at the UK’s ambitious AI Opportunities Action Plan shows the Labour government is keen to attract more data centres than they’ll know what to do with.

The Datacloud team wishes you all the very best for the year ahead, we can’t wait to see this industry grow even more this year!

We also want to extend our heartfelt thoughts to anyone affected by the fires in California, keep safe.

Who said January was when people had no money?

January was meant to be a time when no one had any money, having spent out on extravagant holiday gifts — not so for data centre firms.

So far, we’ve seen AWS inject $5 billion into a new cloud region in Thailand, Microsoft pledging $3 billion to expand in India and $1.6 billion from Digital Edge to expand its services across Asia Pacific.

We also got a look at just how much Microsoft plans to invest in AI-focused data centres this year: $80 billion, courtesy of a blog post from Brad Smith, the company’s president. Half of that cash has been earmarked to spend in the US

Smith used his post to call for support from the Trump administration, and he may just get his wish after the President-Elect stood proudly next to Hussain Sajwani, founder and chairman of Dubai-based Damac Properties at Mar-a-Lago to unveil plans to invest $20 billion in US data centres.

The data centre boom then looks set to continue, at least early on this year anyway, with already cash flowing… it’s alright for those of us who don’t have credit cards to pay off.

Biden’s last act aims to revolutionise data centre growth

One of President Biden's closing acts before leaving office was to extend an olive branch to the US data centre market, instructing federal agencies to make sites ready for new AI data centres and clean power facilities.

Biden’s Executive Order instructs the Departments of Defence (DoD) and Energy (DoE) to select federally-owned sites where private sector firms can build AI data centres and clean power facilities.

The Executive Order will see the DoD and DoE select federally-owned sites where private sector firms can build AI data centres and clean power facilities. The Department of Interior will work to help identify suitable sites, with permitting processes for geothermal-related projects subjected to enhanced consideration.

“We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future," the outgoing President said. “This order sets our Nation on the path to ensure that future frontier AI can, and will, continue to be built here in the US."

The UK’s ambitious AI plan

In the UK, the government unveiled an ambitious plan to attract AI investment, which notably includes ideas to increase the country’s infrastructure capacity twentyfold.

Part of a wider overhaul for DC rules which Capacity broke last December would accelerate planning approvals and provisioning of power for prospective UK data centre operators.

Through so-called ‘AI Growth Zones’ (AIGZs), DC firms would be able to build in earmarked sites across the country including areas with existing energy capacity such as “post-industrial towns and coastal Scotland”.

Also of note, the 32-page plan includes introducing a long-term plan for the country’s AI infrastructure to build “world-class AI compute” across a 10-year investment commitment — which would include the capacity of the AI Research Resource (AIRR), or clusters of computers for AI research, by at least 20 times by 2030.

There’s a lot to unpack from the plan, but the bottom line is the UK is gearing up to take advantage of the data centre boom to fuel the AI revolution.

Data Centre of the Month: Dubai Silicon Oasis

We're bringing back our monthly data centre showcase and we begin 2025 with Gulf Data Hub's Silicon Oasis campus.

The Middle Eastern data operator boasts four operational facilities on the site, with a fifth under construction, slated for completion by the end of 2025.

Capacity sat down with GDH's Himmath Mohammed to find out about how they're responsing to the surging demand in the region for cloud and AI services and how desert-based sites and built and kept cool.

Altera‘s doing its own thing

Altera, the programmable logic device manufacturing company owned by Intel is now an independent.

Announced on X, the company confirmed it’s still a subsidiary of Intel but operating as a standalone company.

“We're excited to drive the future of innovation with agility and focus, shaping the next era of FPGA technology,” the company said.

Intel only bought Altera in 2015 for $16.7 billion but a potential sale was mooted as part of Intel’s ongoing attempts to tighten its purse strings.

Altera will instead sell reconfigurable hardware for markets ranging from data centres to industrial.

“We’re leading with a bold, agile and customer-obsessed approach to deliver programmable solutions and accessible AI across a broad range of applications in the comms, cloud, data centre, embedded, industrial, automotive and mil-aero market segments”, Sandra Rivera, Altera’s CEO said.

Bits and pieces

• It’s good to see the ‘they got Doom running on x’ meme still alive after Guillermo Rauch, the CEO of Vercel turned captchas, those annoying ‘prove you’re not a robot’ tests into the 1992 shooter. Try it out for yourself - but be warned it’s not called ‘nightmare mode’ for no reason!

• It looks to be yet another busy year for the prolific Andy Davis as he teased his next project: Data eXec

• CES, the annual cacophony of consumer tech, came and went. Jensen Huang's ‘GPU shield’ caught our eye — while it was only to show off Nvidia’s NVLink interconnect system, it made you think: What if Captain America wore a leather jacket and had a net worth of $122.3 billion?

• The team over at TowerXchange sat down with James Pickance, CEO of Modular Mast Systems Limited Systems to talk about really cool modular cell towers they’re working on.

• And for those of you who can’t seem to stop buying tech, we love Drop’s Lord of the Rings mecha-mechanical keyboards — it was harder to resist buying these than the call of The Ring.

What’s in the works

First up for the Datacloud team is Datacloud Energy & ESG Europe in Brussels in March - passes are available now - get yours today!

We’re also busy gearing up for tons of networking at Metro Connect USA in Fort Lauderdale - why not join us?