Consumer Data and AI; How Will They Shape the Data Centre of the Future?

In this episode, Asanti's CEO, Stewart Laing, is joined by journalist Martin Veitch and IT industry veteran and journalist, Steve Broadhead, as they discuss the shifting landscape of data centre infrastructure following the explosion of data and the new demands of AI. The trio explore how location, power constraints, and fibre availability are reshaping where and how data centres are built - particularly the northward shift in the UK. They delve into skills shortages, the role of apprenticeships, government policy, and why edge infrastructure and localised data sovereignty matter more than ever, given the direction of US politics. This episode paints a pragmatic yet hopeful picture of a rapidly evolving industry.

Transcript

Introduction: This transcript has been generated for reference and accessibility, with subtitles included on the video for easy navigation. It will not be 100% accurate but should be very close to the conversation.

So today what I want to talk about is basically the future of data centres, where you go in maybe two-to-five-year time scale, and even from right now. And then talk also about some of the issues, might be regulatory or things that are holding back. And then basically how you can get around any of those potential limitations and what you can add. But if you'd like to start Stewart with just telling us, what do you have in mind, the crystal ball? 

Oh, I suppose Asanti did start as a crystal ball, I suppose. I do think we're genuinely in a really exciting time. AI is having a massive impact. It's asking lots of questions of industry as well. In most of the UK, the data centres have been around a while. It's providing a whole range of services, it's the last 15, 20 years or so, probably plus. But there's a definite change being driven by AI.

There's the high density, super high-density compute now that you have, that they use for learning modules and creating things. And then you're going to have the other side of that, which is going to be the application side of it when that comes out and it's different technologies. The first aspect, the super high scall stuff, it's certainly creating challenges for us, for the UK in terms of how do we actually address that. And part of that is, I talk about the three things essentially, we need, right? So, we've got the land to put it on, we've got the power, we've got the fibre.

The land needs to be in the right location. And we talk about, phrase I've used in the past, there's no nasty neighbours in other words, you've got to make sure that your data centre is not next to, actually you don't want it right next to a power plant, but actually you do, for the power. So, there's certainly one of the balances.

And I think if you look at the UK as a whole, we're operating data centres across the UK. So we've got two in the south of England, we've got two in the north of England, we've got two in Scotland. And they have, all these areas have different challenges.

So right now, in the south, trying to get additional power is pretty much impossible. It's going to be at least 2030 now before any significant power, additional power is going to be available. And there's small amounts, but not huge.

In Scotland, for example, fibre. We've got a reasonable fibre infrastructure, but nothing that goes off offshore, for example. So, all of the various areas have different challenges. And we are seeing that right now, just trying to expand our current data centres, especially from a power perspective. 

Does that create a dichotomy because you're talking about the accessibility through fibre, but the problem with highly populated areas that will be well provisioned, basically they've hit their limits. So, what do you actually do? 

We're now starting to see movement. So historically, the data centre was pretty much in the south of England. It still is, it's the vast majority, it is still down south of England, which is, and that's where it's been for years, Docklands and various areas like that, and out towards the west as well. So, there's a huge population of data centres there. And that's been because there was power available, there was skill sets, and the fibre connectivity was there as well. You're now starting to see a move further. I saw something recently like Microsoft and others now looking to move further north and moving up to potential places in the north of England.

And that's great to see. It's great to see it coming out. That's partly been driven by the lack of power in the south right now. But I think also understanding is that we have skills and we've got capabilities. And throughout the UK, I think you know the UK’s got fantastic education system and we create really, really good people. And we want to make sure that we maximise that as an opportunity for us. So, you are starting to see things moving further north. We're seeing our Leeds campus, for example, we’re looking to increase power there significantly in the next few months, that's been secured, which is great. So, we are seeing a move away from the south a little bit in terms of expansion coming further out. 

I mean, I think all three of us would say we're about time, wouldn't we? Absolutely. If I'm moving further north. I mean, Martin, how do you see it going? So, the point being that a data centre historically, whether it was like just a machine room in an IT department, it was very tech, it was very IT. But a lot of the data in data centres now is consumer data. Okay, they're not your customers, but it's changing. I mean, where do you think it's going, Martin 

Because it just seems to be exploding out of all. 

Absolutely. Well, whether you see AI is the biggest inflection points it's the telephone or the internet or whatever comparison you want to make, these inflection points tend to have a massive impact on creativity, innovation, and so on. So, what I'm seeing is a build out number one of capacity, but also smarter approaches to networking, to storage, to compute with the rise of GPUs and a ton of companies and that Graphcore here in the UK with the ability to capitalise on AI. So, number one, I think we're going to see a lot of data centre consumption of AI workloads. And number two, AI itself will inform the ability of those data centres to be able to serve customers. 

Most of the kind of trends in technology are actually, ultimately, driven by consumers, right? Yeah. Let's go to the CD-ROM in a PC, right? And to some extent, therefore, you're having to actually chase what is happening, right? There's no way you can predict that far in advance, but let's say five years down the road, where do you think you can be to support everything? 

From an Asanti perspective, then we fully expect to have your data expanded our business considerably for their acquisition, but also new builds. So, putting data centres into locations that don't have that capability right now, where it's going to be required, I am convinced that with the likes of the development of AI and other things, that we're seeing more and more applications going to have to come closer to the user. We're going to have to see a lot of the data come closer to the user.

There was an article and actually an event that was out three years ago now, that they were talking about this and the expansion of data, the growth of data, and how I see it's growing at such an extent, it's just incredible. It's an exponential curve of data growth that I just find it incredible to comprehend, to be honest, but that's what's happening. And that's caused by us all, every single one of us, we're all creating data every single day. 

Oh yes, the smart ones. 

So that's not going to stop. So how do you actually deal with that? Well, we are going to need more data centres. We're going to need more data centres. That is going to provide services more local to the user. And that's where I see Asanti over the next three, five years. 

Well, it's a great opportunity for a company like this, isn't it? And because the other trend we're seeing is a lot of repatriation. When people get nervous about geopolitics, when they get nervous about laws, when they get nervous about how data is being handled, they're going to want to have it close to their vests. And I think that opportunity to have edge data centres in every town, city, in the country will be a great capability, number one for latency, and number two for control, because we don't know what's going to happen today or tomorrow in the US at the moment. But in the UK, we might have certain insights. And I think that ability to act locally and de-risk by keeping data in the UK itself for UK companies is going to be an incredibly powerful thing and a great opportunity for data centre colocation providers themselves. 

I mean, I think the key word there we described was latency, right? So low latency, because we're not just talking about data, but we're talking about real-time applications just dominating, right? 

Absolutely. 

Not just with consumers and the kids, you know, basically streaming gigabytes and terabytes of a year, which it is now, of movies onto their phones, but just look at since lockdown, how many, let's call them Zoom conferences, others are available. But people just conference all the time. In every aspect of business, but also outside of business, families who didn't, you know, grannies who'd never used computer before, they go on Zoom family. It's just, and it seems to be absolutely relentless. And as we all know, the only obstacle to that is latency. High latency kills any real-time application, stone dead. The further you are away from the source and the destination, the harder that is. Once you get into a rooted network, basically every hop kills it. 

You live in a world, don't we? It's a well-established statistic that the amount of data created in the world in history doubles every two years, right? So, in two years' time, we're going have twice as much data as we've created in all of the history of IT. 

Which is terrifying. 

And we're going to have to be able to handle that. And maybe it's even going to go faster, right? Because AI is going to be very grabby for resources as well. So that's going to have to be supported by data centre, infrastructure, data management, everything it impacts. 

And meantime, resolution goes up in terms of imagery as well. 

Absolutely.

But so, the point being that it's kind of, it impacts on everyone. Not just the world of IT, not just the world of technology. You know, what can, and will the government therefore do because it is fundamentally a part of their requirement to actually establish sufficient data centres. But what are they actually going to do about it? 

I think that there's a growing realisation at that level now of the industry as a whole. And what we need to do. We want to be, I'm assuming this is where they're coming from, they want to be in control of their own data. They don't want that data, somewhere else in the world. And with the way things are going just now and all the things we're reading here about and the concerns people have about that. So, I do believe there is a growing realisation. You know, the step to put data centres as critical national infrastructure. I think it is a key indicator that they see the importance of data centres. I believe that is very positive. No doubt there'll be a lot of compliance that will come with it. But I think overall that should be a really positive step because the industry is self-regulated. And I'm not saying all the regulation, but I do see that there is certainly an understanding starting to develop that they need to create and assist the industry to actually create the capacity that's going to be needed already. But certainly, that's just going to continue to grow. 

Yeah, is it a case of fingers crossed minds that the government hasn't always been as proactive as it suggests it might be?

How dare you, Steve! No, I absolutely concur. I mean, governments always lag behind technology innovation, don't they? And you know, a few areas where they can certainly help is building our core infrastructure, power being one big aspect of that, and skills as well. Skills always lags, doesn't it? So, we need to enable the next generation of folks who are going to be able to manage this data in a very smart way, smarter than we've ever done before. And again, the government really needs to step up on education and being able to support the next generation to be able to do these things. 

I mean, that segues beautiful into the next question, which was skill sets, right? So, I mean, where are the skills coming from? We've talked informally about engineering globally of any form being a major, major issue in terms of just not sufficient people getting involved. Within IT itself, you aren't getting the same breadth and depth of individuals specialising in different aspects of IT. Everybody seems to just want to be DevOps these days, right? Because it's fun, isn't it? Right?

Where's it going to come from? Where is the education? I agree with you, Martin, education, absolutely. Where's it going to go? Who's going to drive it? 

There are certainly challenges there. Now, we've been in the IT industry a long, long time. Too long. Too long, yeah. You're right, there's this huge broad skill set across the IT industry. And sometimes, seen for a long while, there's not been a huge amount of new young people coming into the industry.

So, you see the older ones reappearing time and time again. That would be it. Like myself. Yeah, interesting. One of the things that we have been looking at recently because of that, and the challenge is different parts of the country. So, but one of the things we've been looking at now is apprenticeships, more than apprenticeships, and looking at how we can actually bring people in. Because actually, ironically, data centres are very much part of the IT industry, but data centres are actually not IT in the main. It's electrical engineers, it's mechanical engineers, it's facilities managers, it's health and safety. 

Traditional. 

It's security. It's all these skills that actually need to go to actually create the data centre, to have the data centre operating. Then the IT skills are then happening within that. So, we're looking right now, I've been having conversation recently about how we do this potentially next year or even later on this year, is actually starting to bring in apprentices and put them through apprenticeship training. So, I've been talking with various, the local government bodies around how we do this and how we actually put them through the programmes. And the great thing is there is stuff out there to help to do that. And there is help for us, because it's very difficult to take in an apprentice and train them through a whole programme. Sure. So how do you do that? So actually, but the expertise is there and it's available, which is fantastic. So, we’ll be looking to start to do that, basically, but that's still three, four years down the track. That's the problem with an apprenticeship. So, in the short term, there is definitely still a challenge. And we are seeing that more and more as the data centre industry grows, demand for people, there's a fixed amount of people and what's happening as they're moving about. So, you're constantly looking to, it's unfortunately, you're having to try and attract people from almost like another data centre operator to come over for you. But that's what the industry is.

Sadly, that's what it's all about. I mean, is that going to impact? Is it going to impede kind of development because you're going to say, okay, we will have a fantastic new generation workforce available in four to five years. But meantime, what do we actually do? Do you tread water, what?

No, I think there are still people out there. You know, we, then when we look to recruit, we get people. But I just think, you know, certainly as if you think further down the track, as the industry grows, as we start, as AI starts to impact all the applications and we're having to create data centres closer to the user, then we're definitely going to have to bring in new, say trained people to this role. So, whether the colleges have a part to part playing that universities, but what we're thinking about is actually straight from school almost and actually put them through proper apprenticeships, the old-fashioned approach, I suppose. 

I think the thing is, yeah, I was just going to say that I think the other thing is, you know, we can import as well, right? We should be able to hire, and we should have a good visa system that enables talented people who have these in demand skills to come to this country. You know, unfortunately, various actions have meant that we do have a huge skills shortage, and we don't have a very good programme for encouraging adoption from foreign skills. I think that should certainly be much more than even a sticking plaster. It should be a plank of government policy, not just in data centres, but in many other in demand skills areas.

That's logical, absolutely. I mean, you've got over 7 billion people in the world. There have to be sufficient ones scattered here, there. We work in what's supposed to be a global industry, right? 

Well, look at the US. I mean, what's one of the secrets of the tech industry success in Silicon Valley? It's the H1B Visa Waiver Program, where they can access skills from India, China, all over the world, talented people and give them a great environment to work in and excel. We should be learning a lesson from that. We've never created anything even resembling a Silicon Valley in this country. 

Despite the fact that we've met and spoken with many of those people. 

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. 

I've got clients who – some as they were basically started by Indians and Chinese in Silicon Valley with a fantastic support behind infrastructure, funding, et cetera. And then, yeah, we are some way behind there. 

Well, it's quite interesting, you know, what's happening in the US at the moment, you know, and to the Trump presidency. One thing they haven't done is gone back on H1B. So, they still have that open door for people with appropriate skills in the tech sector, at least. 

As of today. 

As of today.

Make no predictions there. Depends on when you're watching this, right? Just in terms of other restrictions, you mentioned compliance, regulatory. Do you see anything specific there that could be a barrier?

I don't see it as a barrier. Certainly, the new CNI, critical national infrastructure, will I'm assuming will add a certain amount of compliance within the data centre industry. I don't see that as a negative. So, I think at the moment, I talk about that some of the industry is self-regulated, effectively. And I'm not saying the government should go full on regulation of everything that happens, but at the same time, I don't see it as being, I see it as a benefit, I see it as a positive. I see it as something which I would hope would assist the industry as we go forward. 

Yeah, I guess if they're providing what are more like frameworks, then that gives you exactly which building blocks to create, absolutely. 

Yeah, it's also a platform to be talking to them as well as we go forward in terms of how we, what is going to be required as we go, because we're in a really exciting time, as I said before, and things are changing at a ridiculously fast rate. But I guess it always has done the IT industry, but more so in the last few years. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, excellent. I was actually just thinking to myself, obviously everything's AI right now, but can you think of what the next one might be, Martin? 

The next one might be. 

As in the next big trend, because every time you think we're safe now, something comes along. 

I think the complimentary one is quantum computing potentially there, it's very interesting. Effectively, the data centre is a heartbeat of the enterprise, isn't it? The digital nervous system or whatever, corny, yeah, cliche, I want to come out with next. But these are absolutely core, so I think it's highly appropriate that they are treated as critical national infrastructure.

And increasingly, business is going to be divided between the early adopters of technology and the successful adopters of technology and those that fail to adapt and to adopt. So, it's absolutely essential that organisations of all kinds, public sector and private sector, get their houses in order. And the final thing I want to say was, whenever you go through a period of change, partnering makes a lot of sense. All of this stuff is moving so quickly, you don't want to be doing it all on your own because you're going to be gated by that. So, partnering with data centre co-location companies and all sorts of other organisations for security, for all the important core infrastructure needs, I think it's going to make a lot of sense to most organisations. 

It's a really good point. I mean, Stewart, obviously you're in partnerships already, but where do you see that going in terms of developing Asanti?

That was a core part of Asanti, right, from the very start, like I said, beforehand. Having been in the industry for so many years, working for various organisations, predominantly managed service providers, having ran multiple different technical groups, et cetera, et cetera, over the years, I wanted to make sure that Asanti focused on the co-location data centre provision and just make sure that we do that extremely well. And that's our focus. We absolutely recognise what our clients will do, require, will require solutions. So, where that, because there's no point in just trying to sell someone a rack, what you're actually doing is you're selling some of the solutions. And by doing that, what we do is we work with the partners. So, we bring in the expertise. So rather than us trying to be, do everything ourselves and nobody can, let's be honest, then we bring in the expertise that we require. So, we have a small number of strategic partners and together we work with our customers, as I said, to provide the solutions they need. And I emphasise the word need. So, because that's been a huge part of where the industry's been, where the industry's going, whether that be all into public cloud and now coming back out of public cloud, not all areas. So, making sure that we're working with organisations to help them understand what they need as a business and then that that solution fits what they need. 

Sure. Which brings me nicely onto the next element, which is supply chain and relationships and issues potentially. So, I totally get the whole, you've got to partner, right? Gone are the days when we didn't name names, the IBM's and the Cisco's, whatever, you know, they dominated. That's long gone. But does it create other complications? Both in terms of just logistics, security, et cetera. 

I suppose a lot of our focus; we have a team of people that just focus on working with the partners because the relationship is key. Understanding what each of us do is also key. 

Absolutely. 

So, we've got two different partners, for example, involved in a solution, then we're bringing them together. So, we all have to work together as a group, as a team, and before we can then make sure we deliver what we need to the customer. So that's a key focus. We've got team of people, that's the job. It's just working the partners and then working with the end user, with the customer to provide it. And so, it's, I suppose that's the one thing it does bring. It's additional resource from our perspective to make sure that we do that. But the upside is we're then bringing in the right skills and the right expertise.

Yeah, that's the point I was just going to make. It does actually resolve to a certain extent that skill set shortage. I mean, Martin, do you see any particular issues with, you know, there's been a lot of talk in the security world about supply chain issues, right? Where you have interface in between one vendor and another and the fact that often there are backdoor security-wise within systems that people have been able to breach. 

Well, I think it goes back to my earlier point. You know, the days of the not invented here syndrome have to be over. You know, you can't just say that's going to be a core capability. You need to partner with security service providers, data centre co-location facility providers. No one in their right mind is going to be building internal data centres and keeping everything behind the firewall apart from certain edge niche cases. So, I think it really is about getting a quorum of like-minded folks around you and leaning on that kind of expertise because it's just so hard to hire, so hard to retain. You're going to be up against very glamorous companies that can remunerate at a vast scale. So, you know, the future is all about partnering as far as I'm concerned. 

Yeah, no, no, no, no. I agree and ties it. Hate to use the phrase best of breed, but you know. If someone's already good at it, why not use them? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

Just thing in terms of wrapping up on this, any thoughts beyond what we've been discussing, you know, anything we haven't touched on that you'd like to?

No, I just think at the moment where the industry is moving at an incredible speed and that brings its challenges, but it's also exciting. And it brings opportunity as well for industry and for companies to grow. 

Well Martin made the point that what a fantastic opportunity for companies like Asanti. 

Well, if you make the comparison with what happened with the World Wide Web, you know, what happened there? Well, we had to re-architect systems, networks, et cetera. I think exactly the same is going to happen with AI. We're going to see a whole new approach to the way we corral data, the way we manage it, the way we secure it, and that's all going to be AI infused. So, I think it's going to be a good time to have AI on your CV, a good time to be capping hand to the VCs, you're going to put AI, a badge on absolutely everything. And you know, what I really hope is that we're going to see a sort of seed change and a big wave of innovation and creativity that's going to impact pretty much everything we do on this planet. 

I personally have been writing about that scenario since the early 90s, right? I remember writing a column in the days when they were called columns, right? About basically the work versus leisure ratio and how that would ultimately change because of a thing called automation, as we would have called it back then. It's taken an awful long time to sort of get there and it's taken the ability for cheap compute resource and storage, et cetera, to enable it to happen. But actually, it is happening. 

Absolutely. Whatever you want to do about it, right? Well, I mean, on the positive side, you get rid of a lot of horrible chores that humans don't like doing and aren't very good at, machines are very good at. And then we've got to think philosophically about what we do as a society, you know, dealing with potential unemployment or changing nature of skills we need. And that's probably for brighter minds than mine, I'm afraid. 

Does AI actually load the dishwasher? (Laughs) 

Unfortunately, not. Although that's one of the things that should be developed. 

Absolutely, yeah. But that's probably for another occasion.

Well, if you've got no further comments, I'd like to thank you both for a brilliant and realistic insight into the near future. Thank you very much. Thank you.