INFRASTRUCTURE
The UK data centre industry faced plenty of change in 2024 , leading to the government listing them as critical national infrastructure ( CNI ). With increasing need in digital services , companies are seeking more space and power for their infrastructure .
However , despite such innovation , the energy consumption of data centres could exceed 13TWh by 2030 . As electricity prices in the UK continue to rise and the regulatory landscape intensifies , Sammy Zoghlami , Senior Vice President EMEA at Nutanix , suggests that UK data centres are at a crossroads , with indecision leading to higher costs for operators .
“ To meet the increasing demands of AI , post-pandemic digitisation and public accountability , they need to put sustainability front and centre of all future data centre modernisation efforts ,” he explains . “ It is a balancing act for CIOs and digital leaders who
“ Tech leaders must embrace new approaches to data infrastructure with a clear focus on energy efficiency ” need to scale digital infrastructure to accommodate fast-growing demands for compute power and storage capacity , whilst facing shrinking IT budgets due to rising operational costs .
“ The reality : scale sustainably , or risk spiralling costs and missed climate commitments .”
HCI : Bolstering data centre infrastructure Sammy says the next step is harnessing hyperconverged infrastructure ( HCI ) and hybrid cloud platforms . HCI refers to a software-defined IT framework that combines storage , networking , computing and virtualisation into a single system .
Analysis by Atlantic Ventures suggests transitioning from a traditional setup to HCI can lead to energy efficiency gains of more than 27 %.
Sammy explains the impact is greater when HCI is deployed in modern colocation sites , where efficiency improvements of an additional 13 % can be achieved . For businesses leveraging public cloud environments , these gains rise even further , reaching up to 27.96 %. “ Tech leaders must embrace new approaches to data infrastructure with a clear focus on energy efficiency ,” he explains . “ Unlike traditional three-tier setups , which separate servers , storage and networking , HCI consolidates these layers into a unified system . This not only reduces hardware requirements but also optimises power consumption and cooling efficiency .”