The latest data centre trends for 2025 include Integration to support high-density computing, regulatory scrutiny around AI, as well as a greater focus on sustainability.
Vertiv CEO, Giordano (Gio) Albertazzi, said the company correctly identified the proliferation of AI and the need to transition to more complex liquid- and air-cooling strategies as the biggest trends in 2024.
“With AI driving rack densities into three- and four-digit kWs, the need for advanced and scalable solutions to power and cool those racks, minimise their environmental footprint, and empower these emerging AI Factories has never been higher. We anticipate significant progress on that front in 2025, and our customers demand it,” he said.
Advanced computing will continue to shift from CPU to GPU to leverage the latter’s parallel computing power and the higher thermal design point of modern chips.
This will further stress existing power and cooling systems and push data centre operators toward cold-plate and immersion cooling solutions that remove heat at the rack level, according to Vertiv.
Enterprise data centres will be impacted by this trend, as AI use expands beyond early cloud and colocation providers.
Hybrid cooling systems, with liquid-to-liquid, liquid-to-air and liquid-to-refrigerant configurations, will evolve in rackmount, perimeter and row-based cabinet models that can be deployed in brown/greenfield applications.
Liquid cooling systems will increasingly be paired with their own dedicated, high-density UPS systems to provide continuous operation.
Vertiv said overextended grids and skyrocketing power demands are changing how data centres consume power.
Globally, data centres use an average of one to two per cent of the world’s power, but AI is driving increases in consumption that are likely to push that to three to four per cent by 2030.
These pressures are forcing organisations to prioritise energy efficiency and sustainability even more than they have in the past.
Fuel cells and alternative battery chemistries are increasingly available for microgrid energy options.
Longer-term, multiple companies are developing small modular reactors for data centres and other large power consumers with availability expected around the end of the decade.
Average rack densities have been increasing steadily over the past few years, but for an industry that supported an average density of 8.2kW in 2020, the predictions of AI Factory racks of 500 to 1000kW or higher represent an unprecedented disruption.
As a result of the rapid changes, chip developers, customers, power and cooling infrastructure manufacturers, utilities and other industry stakeholders will increasingly partner to develop and support transparent roadmaps to enable AI adoption.
Vertiv A/NZ senior director, LuLu Shiraz, said data centres already account for about five per cent of Australia’s grid, well ahead of the three to four per cent expected globally by 2030.
“By that same year, the nation’s largest data centre companies are expected to invest a further A$26 billion into new data centre infrastructure, which will add further pressure to the energy capacity concerns we’re seeing,” Shiraz said.
“In 2025, it’s vital that Australian industry and government work together to help define energy efficiency standards and meet energy demands to help Australia keep pace in the AI race.
“Our predictions suggest that new data centres and existing ones undergoing upgrades must be built or refurbished to make energy efficiency and sustainability a top priority.”