How can data center specialists meet growing demand, driven mainly by AI? By hiring and investing on a large scale, but also by prioritizing sovereignty and the very latest energy efficiency innovations.
In 2022, France had around 250 commercial data centers of varying sizes, storage capacities and power consumption, mostly located in the Île-de-France region and in the southeast of the country. Their installed available capacity stood at 566 MW, up 16% per year since 2016. It is expected to keep growing to reach 1.8 GW in 2033, an increase of 11% per year over the coming years, according to EY-Parthenon estimates.
The future of data centers is closely tied to that of AI
There are many reasons for this sustained growth. French people are consuming more and more digital services every day (gaming, video, streaming...), which generate huge data storage needs. Cryptocurrency mining also consumes a great deal of computing resources.
But the main needs come from the computing power required to train large artificial intelligence models. With the widespread adoption of these models, demand for computing power is soaring, doubling every 3.4 months (instead of every two years, as Moore's law predicted), according to a study conducted by... OpenAI.
In this context, market players face multiple challenges. To support this strong growth, the data center industry plans to invest €12 billion over the next 10 years, according to the 2023 edition of the France Datacenter Barometer. Most of this investment will go to the Paris region, which is expected to account for 86% of investment over the next five years.
The future of data centers will require large-scale hiring
The data center industry will also need to recruit a great deal of talent. Headcount growth in 2023 compared with 2022 is expected to exceed 15%. Attracting people is the biggest challenge the sector's players will have to meet, again according to participants in the France Datacenter Barometer. The profiles sought are mainly engineers, project managers, IT technicians and sales and marketing staff.
The data centers of the future will be sovereign, or they won't be at all
“If France does not want to fall behind and miss the data center train, it must help establish sovereign data centers”
Many extraterritorial laws threaten the confidentiality of communications, the non-disclosure of data and business secrecy. These include the Cloud Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act), FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and Executive Order 12333.
These three texts, which come directly from the United States, apply to us despite, in particular, the existence of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
“If France does not want to fall behind and miss the data center train, it must help establish sovereign data centers. French local authorities, public administrations and businesses are increasingly seeking to protect themselves from non-European laws that endanger the confidentiality of their data and their intellectual property,” says Damien Desanti, Founder and CEO of PHOCEA DC.
Tomorrow's data centers: energy efficiency above all
According to a study on global electricity consumption published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centers are already driving growth in electricity demand in many regions. While their total electricity consumption was estimated at 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022, it could exceed 1,000 TWh in 2026, roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan.
“Updated regulations and technological improvements, including on efficiency, will be pivotal to moderate the surge in energy consumption from data centers,” write the authors of the report.
One of the main areas of innovation available to data center players is the energy efficiency of their facilities. Using a very simple indicator, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), calculated by dividing the total energy consumed by the data center by the total energy used by IT equipment (servers), companies in the sector can measure and manage their energy efficiency.
Energy efficiency: innovation at every level
“At equivalent energy consumption, immersion cooling makes it possible to increase computing power density tenfold”
European regulations require data centers that start operating from July 1, 2026 to be built and operated so as to achieve an energy efficiency (PUE) below 1.3 or 1.4, depending on their geographic location.
The PUE of PHOCEA DC's data centers will consistently be 1.2 or lower, placing the company among the most innovative players on the market.
“Other innovations will help achieve environmental excellence. In high-voltage switchgear, for example, vacuum can replace sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), an extremely potent greenhouse gas. This will save 20 metric tons of CO2 per kg of gas. What's more, immersion cooling technology provides much more efficient heat dissipation. Thanks to immersion cooling, at equivalent energy consumption, computing power density can be increased tenfold,” concludes Damien Desanti.
Learn more about PHOCEA DC, a provider of sovereign, eco-responsible data centers. Phocea DC is based in Marseille. Its data center covers 1,700 m² with 1.2 MW of power. Compliant with the Tier III standard, it will combine reliability and energy efficiency. Its hosting services are designed for local and national organizations: local authorities, businesses, telecom operators and managed service providers.
