Data centers of the future: What's next?

AI, Cloud, and Resilience: How Data Centers Are Evolving

With YEXIO, a new kind of data center has emerged in Europe since 2020 – small, decentralized, and energy-efficient. HOCHTIEF Managing Director Dr. Heribert Bodarwé looks at future developments in the industry in the third part of this interview series and explains what role AI, cloud strategies, and resilience will play in the future.

With more than 27 years of experience at HOCHTIEF and projects around the world, Dr. Bodarwé combines technical expertise with innovative approaches to sustainable, decentralized data centers.

Mr. Bodarwé, which technological trends are currently influencing data centers the most?

A key driver is the further development of artificial intelligence, for example in the area of large language models. These AI models require enormous computing capacity, especially for training processes. This poses new challenges for data centers – both in terms of architecture and power and cooling solutions.

In my opinion, water cooling will be indispensable here for efficiency reasons. In addition, the trend toward edge computing will intensify because AI-supported processes often require low latency.

What role does cloud computing play in this change?

In general, cloud technologies will become more important, as institutions and companies increasingly want to rely on a secure and sustainably operated IT resource that meets all required (security) regulations. Decentralized data centers like YEXIO offer a decisive advantage here: they enable local, latency-minimizing data processing with cloud-like scalability while at the same time increasing availability through the YEXIO network.

How important is resilience for modern data centers?

Resilience is one of the most important factors in IT infrastructure. Computers must be available around the clock. Decentralized data centers in a network conceptually offer a high level of operational reliability here: if one data center fails, another can take over. This makes our YEXIOs more robust and more resistant to any kind of outage.

The data centers of the future must be more flexible, smarter, and more sustainable.

– Dr. Heribert Bodarwé, HOCHTIEF

Which legal requirements are currently influencing the industry the most?

The Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) sets new standards for sustainable IT infrastructure in Germany. Operators are required to document energy consumption. In addition, the option of using waste heat is now mandatory, something that has hardly been implemented in industry so far. YEXIO is ahead of the market here: waste heat utilization is planned from the outset, and sites are deliberately selected so that this waste heat can also be used. YEXIO – a well thought-out concept.

What will the data center of the future look like?

I see a combination of intelligent automation, sustainable energy supply, and decentralized architecture. Data centers will increasingly be integrated into renewable energy systems, AI-optimized processes will make them more efficient, and modular concepts will enable flexible scaling.