Johannesburg, 11 Apr 2025
The AI era comes with massive data centre power and cooling requirements, but constrained utilities and sustainability concerns could hamper the growth of data centres to support exponential adoption in AI.
Collaboration and innovation will be key to AI progress, according to Vertiv, an expert in power and thermal systems for data centres.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Vertiv AI Innovation Roadshow, in Sandton, last week, Wojtek Piorko, managing director, Africa at Vertiv, said: “There are two key considerations for cooling systems in data centres today. One is how to design the most efficient and reliable, scalable cooling system for your current needs. Then there is the environmental impact of the cooling systems, which has caused mounting concern. However, in some climate zones, the heat rejected from data centres can offset heating requirements in public facilities such as schools.”
Beating power constraints
“Power is a key issue – not just in South Africa. There are restrictions on building data centres in numerous regions because the national grids are not ready to provide enough power. There is a development of small nuclear power units which, five to 10 years from now, might be a source of power for data centres.
“We are partnering with NVIDIA and others to understand their product roadmaps so we can support them with our technologies. They can’t run their businesses without us and we have to understand what’s next.”
Jon Abbott, EMEA technologies director, colocation and hyperscale at Vertiv, added: “Heat from cooling is a waste product in terms of opex. But depending on the scale of the data centre, it could be a win-win because the heat waste could become an exchange product,” he said.
Data centres, with their exponential growth in power demand, are proving to be a challenge for utilities, he said.
Abbott explained: “By 2030, data centres may use around 3% of global electrical production. That’s a big concern, which impacts data centres’ public image. It’s a baseload that grows by 1% to 1.5% a year and utilities want them to be more flexible. Some data centre regions are getting so large that the power isn't available, or the available power is too far from the data centres, so new transmission lines will be needed. In the future, data centres will need to be embedded into the communities where their heat emissions benefit public infrastructure, where they are more than just a consumer of power. There is policy making under way – for example, at the recent Datacloud Energy & ESG Europe conference, in Brussels, where stakeholders are trying to make that connection.”
Collaboration for Africa
Piorko noted that the situation is more complex in Africa, where there are 54 different regulatory environments involved, complicating the roll-out of data centres that can support AI. “Collaboration is needed between infrastructure providers, software platforms and governments to ensure advanced AI data centres align with national priorities,” he said.
He noted: “We see more and more private investors happy to invest in advanced data centres because they know the demand will grow. However, while investors’ sustainability concerns can be addressed by the renewable energy sources available in Africa, the challenge is transmission of that power to data centres.”
“Companies in Africa are keen to build ahead of the AI curve, using the latest technology. But we have to be mindful of the fact that technology progresses so fast we cannot build everything in advance. We don’t know what the latest innovation will be a few years from now. Hence our modular solutions, which allows you to use the latest technology and scale your investment as you need it,” Piorko added.
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