Live in Cannes! From Wall-E to Net Zero: Sustainability and the Storytelling Future of Data Centres

We're back with the Datacloud Power Hour in Cannes, France!

Andy Davis and co-host, Rory Flashman, is joined by Nick Ewing, Managing Director at EfficiencyIT, and George Britton-Read, Chief Operating Officer at Northshore, to discuss how data centre infrastructures can reach their goals of sustainability, and how we can change the narrative for the next talent.

“There are so many stories about where data centres and the role of data centres in what’s going on in the world for the last few years, where incredible things have happened. People have no idea how integral things like compute, AI, HPC, storage, power, intelligence – we wouldn’t be where we are if a data centre didn’t exist”. – Nick Ewing

Tackling the myth of net zero, and how to teach the next generation about the digital landscape, the episode tells the positive stories of the digital infrastructure, re-educating public opinion on data centres – whether it’s by building virtual cities or looking at Wall-E!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:24

Andy David.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Time for today at our power hour. I'm here with George, CLR North Shaw, Nick Ewing, and D Efficiency IT. And of course, I'm still here. For now. We wouldn't be here without you, to be fair, mate.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

We're just having that conversation. So Nick was asking why you're here, and I said, Rory brings all the equipment.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

You said something else as well, didn't you? No, I didn't say anything else.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I mean I said I could hire Casey and cut you out of the equation.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Cut you right out.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Cold. So go bad. Just on that note, I was still going to put my phone on the table this time because when checking the AI generated questions, it looks like I'm not interested in the conversation. So uh let me do that and then we can uh kick things off. Here you go. Nick is the first one to kick you off. If aliens landed and wanted to tour a data centre, what's the first thing you would show them? Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Jeez, that's utterly random.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Imagine if aliens landed and the first thing you did was show them around.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

That reflects really badly on me, doesn't it? Come on, let me show you a data centre. My wife would murder me.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

I'm not gonna ask any questions, I'm just gonna show you around.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

I think I'd show them in uh in uh the mechanical room or the electrical room and show them like the nuts and bolts of what goes on, and then and then maybe once you've seen the background, seeing what happens in the background, then maybe take them into the actual facility and show them the show them the compute, show them the IT side. So that because I don't think you're actually it's a serious arter to do with aliens. I can't even talk to the guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I've got a vision in my head of you showing aliens around a data center now. Well that was a question. I've got I've got what's the question, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:03

What's beautiful about this is George has played a blindly, he's had time for thinking about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

So I'm I'm assuming he's gonna get an awfully random question first off the battery.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Ah, same question. Okay, I've gone mechanical, electrical, then data centres. All I can think is how they're gonna get in past the fingerprint centres. Like, so I don't think they're even gonna get in. So you might have shown the roof. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Alien technology I reckon is pretty advanced. Yeah, I reckon security, no problem whatsoever for those guys. I think it'll be straight in.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Yeah, well, yeah, there is that. It was straight past the all of the security defences. So then bridging from alien technology to sustainability, that is let's get into that.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

That is a link. That is one of the things, is it?

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Yeah. You should do this m oh you are. Yeah. Let's talk about uh sustainability myths and and uh preconceptions about the industry. How about that? Right. Biggest sustainability myth associated with our industry. George, I'll go to you first.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Biggest sustainability myth. No time to think about that one either, have you? Net zero. I think all the companies who are committing to net zero, this might be a little bit controversial, unless they stop doing what they're doing today, it is unachievable.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

The date keeps changing.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

By 2030, by 2040, by 2050.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

As long as we keep building, as long as people want data centres, net zero is is gonna keep on going further and further away.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Is net zero achievable for any industry?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yes. Okay. It is. And in your data center. Any industry that's potentially that's not growing at the same scale, the data centers will be growing. So unless the growth curve of data centers slows down, I think it's gonna be really, really hard.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I think we were talking about that uh in Portugal, I think, at Start Campus, about sustainability was the biggest, like if you ask people the biggest challenge, say go back three years ago, it was all sustainability. Now it's power, yeah, people. Because sustainability is still a massive challenge, and obviously everyone wants everyone wants to do the right thing, but like you just said, demands makes it a lot more difficult to achieve what you want to achieve when you've got customers knocking on your door saying I need capacity, and also us as consumers uh want that capacity as well. You know, we want our everything quicker, everything now, everything better.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

It's much higher up the agenda as well, now, isn't it? Much, much higher up the agenda. There was a there was a time where sustainability seemed to be almost like uh and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna use the word greenwashing. It was a buzzword. It it was, wasn't it? And uh but now it's actually it's it's actually much more important to people than it has been for for a long, long time. For all the right reasons. I think data centres, the new data centres have been built, some of the most sustainable operations in the world, you know, you look at you look at all the other industries and they look at you concentrate on data centres, there's no way people can do what they're doing in in the in the same context. It's it's mega. And that's all been driven by it's all been driven by for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

So in your opinion, it's still one of the top priorities. It still is one of the one of the top priorities for the industry.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

I think the people that are putting uh are it has been used inappropriately lots, and there are lots of people that say they are operating sustainably, but actually they're taking a capex view rather than uh than an opex view. And and I think there will be there will be still still be people that that do that. So I think and still until sustainability and the metrics, so operational, efficient operational costs are part of the the capex equation. I think that will force people to take it properly um more seriously. But I think there are a lot of people, a lot, a lot of people at the moment out there that are doing it the right way just because it's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

Do you ever think that will happen? Both of you. Do you think that will happen in an industry that at the minute is self-regulated for the most part?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

I think there'll be I my view is there'll be there'll be countries that will lead on it, there'll be regions or geographies that will lead on regulation, and then it'll be what impact, positive or negative, does that have? That's what I feel. I think some regions will positively try and create change, whereas others are right now are just we want to be the AI leader or whatever you want to call it, we'll approve any data centre that is put through planning because we want to win the race. Whereas others are being a bit more strategic and selective and saying we want to do it, but in the right way, not just for the sake of having X gigawatt in our country.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

I think until the money behind data centers appreciates that everything has to be done sustainable, yeah, I I think until that equation is addressed, it's not gonna trickle down to the rest of an industry. So I think legislation has a big part to play because if they legislate the money behind a data center, then all of a sudden the money is gonna say, hey look, we need to be doing these things, we need to be prescribing down our own wants, our own desires, our own kick guys, our own targets on our assets, and say, hey look, we need to build these things more efficiently and operate them efficiently by servers.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Do you think a lot of it's um driven by the consumer as well? As the the demographic of the consumer is changing, there's a lot, like we keep saying every person we chat to, there's a lot more young people here, right? Let's which is great. And the demographic, like my children who are eight and eleven, get their ages right, um, they actually care about like energy. Whereas as an eight-year-old and eleven, we've no idea. Didn't even know what it was, you know, didn't really care what it was.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

And what I was about to say was, and to your and to your point, you have a responsibility at, you know, people don't know about data centres. You know, you go outside of this venue here, people have no idea what's going on behind the behind the front door. So we have a responsibility to talk about the industry. Everybody uses things that are that are devoured inside a data centre. But but so many people don't know what happens inside a data centre. So we have a role. Well, we're kind of we're we're role models, if you like. We've gotta we've got to field them properly, we've got to manage them properly, we've got to manage them efficiently, and we've got to prove to people that the technology that they're using is being is being managed efficiently rather than just guzzling guzzling all sorts of fossil fuels and all the rest of it in in areas in it in countries, I won't say anyone, but there are there are certain Ubates that that care less than this industry does.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

You made a good point there. No one knows about the industry, so where does that education start? It's up to the PR companies. Oh, cold.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Do you know what I mean? And recruitment fans.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

We're in it for the money, you know, we don't I think, jokes aside, like it's much better than it was. You sometimes forget that. Like, genuinely, no one knew what a data centre was three years ago. A lot of people do actually know what one is now. But I yeah, again, on the point, like we're as far as everyone that sat on the beach in Cannes, we're just kind of probably ruining their holidays. Why are you not here? You know, I'm trying to sunbathe, and you guys are talking about racks on the uh in the bar. Um, but yeah, so I think it is changing in the right way, but a lot of it is again down to the PR, and like we always talk about it's how you communicate. How you communicate what you do has a big impact on people learning about the industry.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

Something we were talking about recently, a DCMC, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Exactly. It comes up in all conversations, it's not like again, I always have that joke of how I'm going to announce a one gigawatt and John's gonna announce a two gigawatt and Daisy's gonna announce a three gigawatt. It just goes on trying to announce the biggest data centre, but that's not good PR. Because if I see a gigawatt, I just see power, massive amounts of power, yeah. Masses of power. And if I live in a say a 50-mile radius of where that site is, I'm rightfully I'm concerned where that power's coming from when I've got in the media challenges around power and you know, blackouts or whatever you want to see. So there's a big communication aspect of how how much of that capacity we're actually going to use and when, what's that data centre doing?

SPEAKER_03 10:14

You know, what what what's stored in that data centre? And that and there are so many stories, there are so many stories about where data centres and the role of data centres in in stuff that's going on in the world and has been going on in the world for the last few years. They have so many stories and so many examples of where incredible things are happening.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

That's right, the COVID vaccine is a classic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

And we've talked about this and well, we've talked about this so many times. People have no idea how integral, almost impossible without computes. Yeah. Almost impossible without HBC, AI, storage, compute, power, intelligence. We wouldn't be where we are if a data center didn't exist, if 10 data centres didn't exist, if 50 data centres didn't exist around the world. And and people have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

This conference wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Well we wouldn't be at this conference in person. Sorry, sweet. I was gonna say maybe you asked a question earlier about what's the biggest myth at our data centers. And I think maybe coming back to that, like the the whole power thing of like, hey, look, data centers are power hungry, and they're just a problem. I think we've seen in the last six months actually, data centers is part of the solution. And there's actually some amazing companies that we're working with that are actually really flipping that equation on its head and say, hey, how can we not only power our buildings 100% renewable, like everybody should be doing that so, anyways, in my view, like okay, it may cost a premium, but how can they also contribute locally in terms of that power infrastructure as well? And I think that's that's something that the industry doesn't do enough of, is that is that positive spin. And like most of the big people, most big companies are doing that, and I think that that could really change the opinion. And I think teaching those things to kids, whether it's through the internet, whether it's through TikTok, whether it's through Instagram, like I think that's where the education can start, and definitely the younger audience educating younger people will help as well, rather than TikTok, and these yeah that's got to be next time.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, I think I might I might set my kids on that one. Yeah, yeah, I think what was I gonna say? I think from uh from your that point, I totally agree with it. The amount of new technology companies that message me saying we want to share our story, and I'm like, your story's amazing. How is this not public? How would people not know this? Like, there's it's trying to break through that that um barrier of this industry as well about getting the stories out there. The positive stories are there, the posit there's so much technology coming into this industry that's massively beneficial to society, yeah, like literally to everything. But those that tech does find it quite hard to communicate because a lot of the again, a lot of the media communication is we're building a two gigawatt data centre, or we've just raised two billion dollars in capital, or we're gonna we've announcing this startup. Whereas the technology will get uh a little paragraph at the bottom saying, Oh, we've just created some technology that's saving 20% of energy, which equates to X billion a year, it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Negative bias, though, people want to report are the most negative things.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Is it but is it that, or is it that's what we want to read? Like, so again, it goes back to consumer, doesn't it? It's like we need to re-educate ourselves about what we want to read. My newsletter does quite well off massive announcements. Like, that's a perfect example. Whereas if I did a newsletter on new technology, that no one would read it, it'd be really niche.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

There's also that challenge of what the industry can and can't talk about, right? Like, I know this is one of the big big things.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Or what the industry thinks it can and can't talk about.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Elaborate.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

I think a lot of the time, like, start of the podcast 2020, people said I have to sign an NDA for every conversation, start a podcast, no one asks me to sign an NDA. Like, where's the logic there? Like, I think again, they're so scared of the customer, they're so afraid of what the customer thinks because there's such a limited amount of customers, they don't want to share something that may or may not impact the customer. There's obviously a lot that we can't say, but a lot of what people say to me they can't say, they actually can, it's just how they communicate it.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Do you think the government focus on the industry, especially in the UK right now, is helping or exacerbating the problem?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I think I don't want to get political. Uh the UK is probably a bad example when you talk in politics. I think um I think the government's helped expose the industry, so the government's helped give the industry a platform, but a lot of the media is negative. But then it does depend what media you read.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Like again, how does that how does that how do we flip that?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

I think it's up to us as an industry to flip it because again, like you know, bad news sells, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 14:44

It's a process of education, right? And it's just my opinion of it, it's a process of education. Like, if it if we start, the point is that you know, let's say argument journalists don't really understand what the industry does, and people, the general public, don't understand the role of data centers in their data they like. It's a process of education, and this is what I was going to ask you earlier. Like, how do we address that at like a route and branch level? How do you communicate the benefits of a data centre to a primary school staff? How would you make them interested in the industry?

SPEAKER_03 15:17

It's a Roblox. It's a it's a that's why I say working Roblox. Minecraft, Minecraft, PayStation, it's big Apple, you know, every single device. So just to be politically correct, Samsung as well. Sorry, other devices are available.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

So this industry needs to be collaborating with the gaming platform and making the industry interesting, and connecting the doors between the TPs.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

So trying to take on beef, I don't know how you fight take on people to work your data centres, but unless they unless they know what you're talking about, it's quite difficult to lead somebody to go and work in a in a in a in a noisy room all day, every day. Because people just put their awareness there.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah, whereas we we've actually found the total onquisie because we've we as North Shore we brand ourselves a sustainability consultant, primarily that's what we're doing for consultants and technology. People tag on to the sustainability road text, and actually we're and young people give a shit.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Young people care.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, exactly. We we did our first intern programme five years ago, and we got 800 applicants for one raspberry, and it was and we so we've continued to feed off that that momentum and say, hey, look, here's a young 21-year-old that is far more enthusiastic. We've got an employee and he's gonna have a carbon tattoo on his arm. That's this is all it was carbon emissions on one side and the carbon saved on the other side. So we've got some passionate people, and I think the passion then draws more people into the industry, means you're more interested and you're way more creative and problem solving.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

And I think like when I we were at the UTC, and when you talk when we go to schools and things, it's like change the world is like a big, a big term, but young people do genuinely want to change the world. They they do think that it's a bit of a mess, and quite rightly to be honest, like again, let's all get political, but it is a bit of a mess. Um, they do want to change the world, but are we spinning the industry in a way where you can you know like I don't think many industries are can change the world as much as we can in this period. Like people compare it to the industrial revolution. That's how this period of time's transformative. Well, we don't sell it like that. Kids don't know that.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

We're talking about is the AI revolution now, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

AI is gonna change all our lives. Whether you want it to or not, yeah, yeah, it has already. And it we're sitting here asking chat GPT questions, yeah. It's made my life easier.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

So actually, on that note, maybe this is the place to finish. Let's have a quick look. Let's try to find a good one. Which movie best represents the future of data centers? The Matrix Wally or Die Hard or another?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I don't I don't really watch movies, so I'm gonna struggle on this one.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

I think if you're talking about forecasting the future, you need to be looking at the Simpsons. It's never wrong. The Simpsons do not get anything wrong, do they? There's way too much stuff that's happened in the Simpsons. So we need to watch the Simpsons and find the answer. I mean, who knows? I mean they've got a lot of stuff right recently, haven't they? And again, not going down a different tangent, but they've got a lot of shit right, haven't they? Um I it's got me the matrix, really, because because a year ago it wouldn't have been, but I think now it probably is, because of what, because of what we're walking into.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Yep. George, you're gonna say the red pill or the flu pill? I'm gonna go wallet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Nice. I think like I genuinely think, depending on like I I mean, I read an article uh just before Christmas that it was like, hey look, the the previous version of ChatGPT was being deprecated. ChatGPT found out about it, that that that version duplicated itself onto another server just so that it continued to exist, because it's been hard-coded to just exist at all costs. So if that's what the old version of ChatGPT can do, and and I'm sorry if I got that stat wrong, but it I read it on an article on Reddit. What is the next generation of AI going to be capable of? If it's programmed to just continue to exist, consume all the world's natural resources, then I think Wally does a pretty good job with uh defecting where we could go.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

I mean I can see how Wally is uh becoming the future considering that now everybody's sat around staring at screens, and uh lucky there hasn't been too much about during this event so far.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I know, but that's you need to answer it. Yeah, I don't I genuinely don't watch movies. I'm rubbish at any it's sorry if this is a quiz. I'm out in this section, you know. Put me in the sports section.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

You answer now. Uh well answer out those three. I'd I'd agree with with George entirely. I go. Well I'll go matrix in because I've actually seen it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I think is it Space Jam that mentions a data centre as well? You can pick any movies.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

But you'd like it to be spent.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I think I think it does mention a data centre. Some Space Jam geek is gonna call me out now and prove I don't watch movie.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

There is a really good TV programme called Afterlife, actually, which uh American TV programme where you can continue to exist in the afterlife when you upload your body, like when you die, basically. And it's a really quite a good reflection of Halo, and can you continue to exist in the future in a in a world that is constructed like like the world today?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Shall we answer that question after another four beers?

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Yeah. Okay, a conversation is to be con TV. Good meat. Thanks for joining us for the Power Owl. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Cheers, guys.