The Top 10 Data Center Stories for August 2021

Capital, climate and cooling were the major themes that readers of Data Center Frontier were tracking closely last month, as four of our 10 most popular stories focused on mergers or funding for data center providers. These included our trend stories on new investments by infrastructure funds in digital platforms, a look at the strategic impact of five years of M&A, Cyxtera going public through a SPAC deal, and Nautilus raising funds for more water-cooled facilities.

Here are the 10 most popular stories on Data Center Frontier in August 2021, in order of article views:

• Facebook Unveils Water Projects to Support $800 Million Mesa Data Center: Facebook announced a series of major investments in water conservation as it confirmed plans for an $800 million data center campus in Mesa, Arizona. The project had brought national attention to the data center industry’s stewardship of scarce water resources in drought-stricken areas.
• Nautilus Lines Up $50 Million to Build More Water Cooled Data Centers: Nautilus Data Technologies continues to raise funding to pursue its vision for water-cooled data centers in new second-tier markets. The company has lined up UIL Limited for the first $10 million in a $50 million offering of convertible notes.
• Billion Dollar Deals Are Transforming the Data Center Industry: As Blackstone Infrastructure completes its record $10 billion deal to buy QTS Realty, we look at the major billion-dollar deals in the data center industry, and how they have shaped the sector over the past five years.
• The Capital Deluge Continues for the Data Center Industry: Global investors are pumping billions of dollars into the data center industry, creating a historic inflow of capital. Here’s a closer look at recent investments by infrastructure funds and global investment firms, and what they may mean for future data center development.
• Google Plans $1 Billion Data Center Expansion in Ohio Cloud Cluster: Google will invest an additional $1 billion in its data center operations in Central Ohio, expanding its campus in New Albany and acquiring land for future campuses in Columbus and Lancaster.
• Cyxtera Goes Public as Starboard SPAC Acquisition Closes: Cyxtera Technologies is now a public company. Shares of CYXT are trading on the NASDAQ exchange after Starboard Value Acquisition Corp. completed a $3 billion acquisition of Cyxtera.
• The Evolution of Data Center Cooling: Liquid Cooling: The challenge for many in the data center industry is how to leverage density and space more effectively while still being able to scale critical resources. A new Data Center Frontier special report, courtesy of TMGcore, looks at how liquid cooling is driving the evolution of the data center industry.
• The Cloud Computing Community Confronts Climate Change: As the world confronts the growing urgency of the climate crisis, top cloud computing companies are stepping up their efforts to lead the transition to a cleaner economy. Here’s a look at the next phase of the cloud sector’s climate impact.
• Forced Physics Targets Edge Computing With New Cooling Design: Data center cooling startup Forced Physics Data Center Technology is entering the edge computing market, offering an outdoor server enclosure that can operate without water or traditional air cooling.
• Aligned Lands Build-to-Suit Data Center Project in Salt Lake City: Aligned has acquired property in Salt Lake City for a build-to-suit data center project for a large customer, continuing Aligned’s success in the fast-growing Utah data center market.

Education is part of our mission at Data Center Frontier. In our Voices of the Industry feature, we share the experience of data center executives on the front lines of innovation. Here’s a look at the most popular Voices columns for DCF readers last month:

• Are We Headed Toward Lights-Out Data Centers? (Belden): Traditional networks tend not to be as scalable, agile or flexible as they need to be to support automation and lights-out data centers. Shad Secrist, Data Center Pre-Sales Solutions Engineer at Belden, discusses leaf-spine architecture in lights-out data centers.
• 1+1+1>3 When It’s a Hybrid Multi-Cloud Ecosystem at the Edge (EdgeConneX): It’s not just about the Edge, and it’s not just about the ecosystem. It’s both. It’s the combination that helps service providers reach more enterprises and give them the solutions they need to fully achieve their digital transformation goals. Phillip Marangella, CMO of EdgeConneX, explores how the hybrid multi-cloud ecosystem at the Edge enables enterprises to achieve digital transformation.
• The 4 Elements That Can Make or Break Your Construction Schedule (ProLift Rigging):One major contributor to the increased speed of data center construction is modularization. Nate Harper, Marketing and Inside Sales Manager at ProLift Rigging, discusses how logistics, storage, transportation, and on-site installation can make or break a modular data center’s construction schedule.

Be sure to check out all of our Voices columns, including insights from Flexential, DataBank and Stream Data Centers,

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