2021 is far away. Looking back on the whole year, the global economic turmoil continued under the epidemic, and the tide of new domestic infrastructure construction is in the ascendant. Dual carbon and "dual energy consumption control" affect thousands of industries. This year coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China. In order to realize the dream of a powerful country with science and technology, countless people who have tackled key problems have been fighting at night and facing difficulties. This year, they have devoted themselves to the cause of national rejuvenation. 2021 is the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan". This year, my country's major innovation achievements have emerged eagerly, innovation capabilities have continued to improve, and the "pulsation" of innovation has been particularly strong.
2021 can be described as the data center business development is in full swing. We can use a few keywords to count.
energy
For the first time, the Central Economic Work Conference in 2021 listed "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" as a key task, which opened the prelude to the introduction of a series of dual-carbon policies from the central to the local level.
In the first half of the year, 19 provinces (regions) did not meet the energy consumption intensity reduction, and many provinces strengthened supervision on high energy consumption industries including data centers. In August and September, the tight energy supply and demand brought about a "power curtailment wave", and many data centers received notifications of "shifting power usage". Shandong, Shanxi, Guangxi, Yunnan and other provinces have written energy efficiency indicators such as PUE into relevant policies. The Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen regions have refined data center supervision, strengthened energy conservation reviews, and strictly approved energy use indicators.
Qinhuai Data and Universal Data released ESG reports, and provided a timetable for adopting renewable energy or achieving carbon neutrality.
The green and low-carbon design and high-efficiency and intelligent operation and maintenance of data centers have been paid more and more attention, and the application of energy-saving technologies such as liquid cooling has become more widespread. Many IDC companies have launched pilot projects for new energy storage systems and photovoltaics in data centers, and equipment manufacturers have followed up on the above trends, showing an intensifying trend. The energy structure of data centers dominated by coal power is changing: data center companies gradually introduce and increase the use of green power. Among them, the data centers of Three Gorges Group and Heying Data benefited from the advantages of wind power and hydropower brought by geographical location, and proposed the goal of zero-carbon data center. The launch of the national green power trading pilot program has effectively boosted green power trading and green energy consumption in data centers. In 2021, the importance of energy will be increasingly highlighted, and the data center industry will usher in changes.
computing power
With the development of the digital economy, the growth of computing power including data centers will become an inevitable trend.
In the "Three-year Action Plan for the Development of New Data Centers (2021-2023)", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has clarified the core position of the new data center in the intelligent computing power ecosystem, and for the first time proposed the “computing power indicator”-by the end of 2023, my country's data The total computing power of the center must reach 200EFLOPS.
In May, the "National Integrated Big Data Center Collaborative Innovation System Computing Hub Implementation Plan" was released, clarifying that it will be deployed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing region, and Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and other places. Layout and build a national hub node for the big data center. The "Eastern Data and Western Calculation" project was launched.
In December, the National Development and Reform Commission and other four departments issued a document "overweight", proposing that "the new large-scale and super-large data centers should be laid out in principle within the national hub node data center cluster. In principle, for the newly-built data centers outside the national hub nodes, local The government shall not grant preferential policies in terms of land, finances, taxes, etc."
This year, the growth rate of data center resources in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and its surrounding areas has slowed down, and data center companies have increased their distribution to the central and western regions. Some areas have gradually become industrial clusters, such as Chengdu-Chongqing, Central China, Guiyang and Ulanqab. In the process of data center development from extensive to high-quality, computing power has become one of the key evaluation criteria, and computing power growth, computing efficiency, high-performance computing power, and heterogeneous computing power have become new concerns for IDC companies.
In the long run, the integrated big data center hub node policy will change the current overheated computing power and storage distribution in the east. Perhaps looking back in the future, 2021 will become a turning point in the new layout of my country's computing power.
Digitizing
The "14th Five-Year Plan" outline in the fifth chapter "Accelerating Digital Development and Building Digital China" puts forward: "Digital transformation is used to drive overall changes in production methods, lifestyles, and governance methods."
With the advancement of the digital transformation of various industries, the data center has transformed from a basic center supporting Internet applications to a computing power and competence center that empowers the digital transformation of thousands of industries.
In traditional industries such as medical care, transportation, and steel, digital transformation has brought significant cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and the dependence on data centers in various fields has increased. Data centers in industries such as energy big data centers and textile data centers have landed in many places across the country. Information technologies such as big data and cloud computing are deeply integrated with traditional industries, and application scenarios such as smart cities and smart healthcare have become new driving forces for the growth of data center demand.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the demand for high-power and high-performance IDC for AI training, reasoning and other application scenarios is accelerating the release. Some IDC companies have begun to provide data centers with specialized services for artificial intelligence; new technological breakthroughs and the online transfer of financial technology businesses require that data centers can well meet the stringent requirements of financial security and adapt to business development needs such as flexible expansion. Financial centers And related equipment is more standardized and large-scale.
The meta universe, which includes hot topics in the industry, is also built on the basis of the gradual maturity and integration of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and blockchain. It is a product of the advanced stage of digital development. Provide better digital support for the real world by constructing a virtual space that is completely open to the real world. Digitization will surely change mankind more than the industrial revolution and will usher in a new era for mankind.
sustainable development
For a long time, the data center industry has been proactively using power utilization efficiency (PUE) indicators to improve the power efficiency of facilities, but the improvement of efficiency is only the first step in environmental sustainability.
Under the "dual carbon" trend, people are also prone to fall into the misunderstanding of "low carbon = sustainable", but in fact, low carbon and zero carbon are only part of sustainable development. Broadly speaking, the United Nations Planning Agency (ESG) was used to describe the sustainable development of an enterprise, including its impact on the environment, corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance.
Golden Samurai UPS Power recommends different indicators based on the different stages of the company, including 6 key elements of energy, water, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, land and biodiversity.
In the face of challenges, the data center industry is facing a situation of "unchanging and retreating". On the one hand, the dual carbon goal has prompted tenants and hosting service providers to make changes. On the other hand, from the perspective of enterprises themselves, sustainable development is the main way for enterprises to enhance their core competitiveness in the future. A complete one-stop low-carbon intelligent hardware product and intelligent software management system are the cornerstones for realizing detectable, measurable, and interconnected. The power supply and distribution system has a great impact on the sustainable operation of the data center. The architecture design of the data center power supply and distribution system, the application of wind power, photovoltaic power generation, lithium power, hydrogen fuel cell energy storage and other technologies have become the key. Huabao Power Supply and its subsidiary Golden Samurai UPS power supply technical team adjusted the research direction and layout for this purpose.
2022 is here. As a data center designer and builder, we are taking a confident step, stretching our arms and embracing the future.