New partners join Equinix to test sustainable data center innovations

Equinix, the digital infrastructure business, has announced the opening of its first Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) at the Equinix Ashburn Campus in the Washington, D.C. region, in its DC15 International Business Exchange (IBX®) data centre.

It is a critical component of Equinix’s and a one-of-a-kind tool that allows partners to cooperate on testing and creating innovations. These breakthroughs, such as discovering a way to clean hydrogen-enabled fuel cells or deploying more competent battery technologies, will help define the global future of sustainable digital infrastructure and services, said a company statement.

Sustainable innovations, including liquid cooling, high-density cooling, intelligent power management and on-site prime power generation, will be incubated in the CIF in partnership with data center technology innovators including Bloom Energy, Zutacore, Virtual Power Systems (VPS) and Natron. 

The CIF will incubate sustainable ideas such as liquid cooling, high-density cooling, intelligent power management, and on-site prime power production in collaboration with new partners such as Bloom Energy, Zutacore, Virtual Power Systems (VPS), and Natron.

These partners will test core and edge technologies in conjunction with Equinix, with an emphasis on proving reliability, efficiency, and cost to construct. These are some examples:

• Generator-less and UPS-less Data Centers (Bloom Energy) – By utilising on-site solid oxide fuel cells, the data centre is able to generate redundant cleaner energy on-grid, potentially eliminating the need for fossil fuel-powered generators and power-consuming Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems.

• High-Density Liquid Cooling (ZutaCore) — Highly efficient, direct-on-chip, waterless, two-phase liquid cooled rack systems capable of cooling up to 100 kW per rack while being light and compact. Eliminates the danger of IT breakdown, reduces the consumption of precious resources such as electricity, land, construction, and water, and significantly reduces the data centre footprint.

• Software-Defined Power (VPS) with cabinet-mounted Battery Energy Storage (Natron Energy) – Cabinet power management and battery energy storage system regulates power draw and reduces power stranding to near zero percent, potentially improving power efficiency by 30-50%.

“Building upon our continued collaboration with Equinix, we’re proud to bring our solution to the CIF and move the industry toward a more sustainable future. By generating power on-site with high levels of power availability and needed resiliency, data centers can take control of their sustainable energy needs: said Deia Bayoumi, Vice President, Product Management, Bloom Energy

Udi Paret, President, ZutaCore said: “ZutaCore is honored to be featured at the CIF and partner with Equinix to advance the proliferation of liquid cooling on a global scale. Together we aim to prove that liquid cooling is an essential technology in realizing fundamental business objectives for data centers of today and into the future”

 “The data center of the future must be sustainable. Equinix is committed to sustainability globally as evidenced by its target to be climate neutral across our business by 2030. We are well on our way with over 90% renewable energy coverage worldwide. And thanks to the work we’re doing with partners at the CIF, we’re continuing to make significant advancements in the way we design, build and operate our global platform, with high energy efficiency standards,” said Raouf Abdel, EVP, Global Operations, Equinix.