CIOs, CTOs, and other technical leaders come from diverse backgrounds with varying priorities. However, one thing unites them: they all have better things to do with their time than manage a data centre. Colocation has long been seen as the solution, freeing up time for IT leaders to focus on their core responsibilities.
But, not all colocation data centres are created equal. By deploying in a high-performance data centre, businesses can unlock benefits far beyond space and power. In fact, the right colocation partner can help tackle some of today’s most significant challenges, including:
- Meet current needs while remaining adaptable to future innovations or operational shifts in priorities
- Preparing for AI adoption
- Progressing sustainability goals
Let’s explore these in more detail.
1. Meeting the needs of today, without creating future wastage
The foundation for digital evolution is a flexible platform with colocation data centres and digital infrastructure services (both physical and virtual). These enable your business to address data, networking, compute and sustainability requirements effectively.
Access to digital ecosystems expands your options for selecting the best-fit service providers. The value of the extensive ecosystems on Platform Equinix is that you can connect with cloud and network service providers that can evolve with your needs, alongside technology and SaaS companies that add value and accelerate your digital evolution.
2. Prepare for AI adoption with infrastructure that’s both powerful and flexible
AI workloads are compute-intensive, and the size of the datasets is only set to grow. Securing the compute capacity to support those workloads—including powerful GPUs—can be difficult, particularly when relying on a conventional private data centre. Deploying the right hardware and supporting it with advanced cooling and reliable power supply adds complexity.
A high-performance colocation provider can simplify this. It also ensures flexibility to support distributed AI workloads, offering infrastructure and location options for training and inference tasks. You can leverage cloud-based AI applications when appropriate while keeping sensitive datasets on-premises or in controlled environments to maintain cost-efficiency and data control.
3. Progressing your sustainability goals
Sustainability has become a priority for nearly every organisation. However, achieving meaningful progress is a collaborative effort.
Your suppliers’ direct emissions contribute to your indirect (Scope 3) emissions. Partnering with sustainability-focused providers is essential. A high-performance data centre partner can help you benefit from their existing sustainability initiatives.
At Equinix, we focus on making our data centres both clean and efficient. We are dedicated to limiting resource consumption and prioritise replenishing resources through renewable sources. Our initiatives include operating equipment within wider temperature ranges, adopting liquid cooling for high-density workloads, and achieving 100% renewable energy coverage globally by 2030 (achieving 96% in 2023). In Australia, our renewable energy PPA is progressing these goals further.
Take the next step in your data centre journey
Deploying in a high-performance data centre operated by a global colocation provider unlocks numerous benefits. This article has only scratched the surface. Visit Equinix today to learn how you can achieve more without an on-premises data centre slowing you down.