145536646
submission
judgecorp writes:
Data centers have diesel generators for backup, and they test them monthly, wasting MWh of energy. A Canadian architect has proposed an elevator which would use that energy by raising concrete blocks, so it can be recovered when needed for use nearby. Add in heat reuse, and the study says that data centers could allow homes to stop burning natural gas.
116134340
submission
judgecorp writes:
German police have raided a data center in a former Nato bunker in Traben-Trarbach, western Germany. Six hundred police stormed the six -story underground facility, where they seized roughly 200 servers, allegedly used for drug dealing, child pornography and illegal botnets. Seven people were arrested. The facility was bought in 2013 by an affiliate of CyberBunker,
101926742
submission
judgecorp writes:
A building under construction in the Tokyo suburb of Tama which caught fire last week appears to have been a data center, due to be completed later this year. The fire broke out in a sub-basement of a three-story building under construction; Japanese news site Nikkei xTech believes the building was due to become a new facility for Amazon Web Services (AWS).
101412272
submission
judgecorp writes:
A disused Stanley Black & Decker factory in New Britain, Hartford County.CT, will get a 20MW micro-grid powered by fuel cells, according to the first phase of a plan unveiled by the State Governor. It's a big deal because it will be the largest indoor micro-grid in the world, and will help provide a reliable power source for a data center in the old factory. Along with the other phases of the project, Governor Dannel Malloy hopes the deal will provide 3,000 jobs and lots of tax revenue.
99072131
submission
judgecorp writes:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is making a Swedish mountain grow. When the Vilsta ski resort asked to increase the altitude of its ski slopes by ten meters, it was told to find rock mass free of toxic pollutants. AWS is excavating 100,000 tonnes of rock to build a new data center in Stockholm. The spoil got the environmental all-clear, so it's on the way up the mountain to improve the slopes, creating a new Giant Slalom piste, and a new beginners' slope.
97391048
submission
judgecorp writes:
Intel reports it has developed a silicon-based quantum computing chip that can be manufactured using conventional foundry techniques. The theory of ‘spin qubits" has been known for a while’ (detailed maths here): the approach uses magnetic resonance to manipulate the spin of individual electrons. Intel plans to use isotopically pure silicon wafers and a conventional silicon foundry to make spin qubit test chips — potentially scaling up to make them in "thousands" within a few months.
88392175
submission
judgecorp writes:
In a patent filed at the end of December, Microsoft has proposed data centers on the sea bed, which will be a haven for sea life, designed to support an artificial coral reef. The idea is an update on Project Natick, the prototype Microsoft submerged off the US Pacific coast in 2015. This version would contain multiple server racks, held in a pressure vessel, in removable modules which can be removed to the surface for maintenance without disturbing the sea life.
86091269
submission
judgecorp writes:
ING Bank's Romanian data center was taken down by what has been described as a "loud noise". A million customers were effected as the bank's online operations failed for ten hours. In fact, during a test of the bank's fire suppression system, a sudden release of inert gas created a shockwave, and the vibration damaged the hard drives in the data center's storage systems. This sounds exotic, but it's a well-known data center problem, so the question is — why was the fire suppression badly designed, and why was it tested at lunch time on a business day?
85181931
submission
judgecorp writes:
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has knocked up a small, liquid cooled data center in just 29 hours for the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC), in which AIs will try to hack each other for $2 million prize. The facility will contain seven supercomputers, to host the seven teams entered in the cyber battle, which takes place on 4 Augus at Def Con in Las Vegas.
83712833
submission
judgecorp writes:
The Chinese are launching a quantum communications satellite in July, that could be the basis of an unbreakably encrypted global network. It's a collaboration between Professors Pan Jianwei of China and Anton Zieliger of Austria, who went with a Chinese satellete as the European Space Agency was too unresponsive. Quantum key distribution remains the most practical application for quantum physics in IT, although investment in quantum computing itself continues
82972427
submission
judgecorp writes:
Microsoft's experiment with running a data center at the bottom of the ocean was not a one-off science experiment. The scheme was driven by a need to offer more data center units at lower cost, and lights-out operation has made it possible to consider leaving servers 600 ft underwater for two years at a time. Larger test runs will follow.
82963671
submission
judgecorp writes:
The White Datacenter project in Bibai City, Hokkaido, is cooled in summer by winter snow. The region gets up to 11m of snow in winter, and stores mounds of it under a layer of insulating material. The snow gradually melts in summer, and the cold water is used in data center chillers. During winter, the waste heat from the site is used in greenhouses.
81922899
submission
judgecorp writes:
Google has elected to open up some of its data center designs, which it has till now kept to itself. Google has joined the Open Compute Project, which was set up by Facebook to share low-cost no-frills data center hardware specifications. Google will offer up its ideas for a rack which uses 48V DC power distribution, increasing energy efficiency by 30 percent thanks to a reduction in the number of times the power goes through transformers
80795483
submission
judgecorp writes:
A Microsoft Research project to run a data center underwater was so successful the team actually delivered commercial Azure cloud services from the module, which was 1km off the US Pacific coast for three months. The vessel, dubbed Leona Philpot after a Halo character, is a proof of concept for Project Natick, which proposes small data centers that could be submerged for five years or more, serving coastal communities.