Sydney Cloud & Datacenter Convention 2024

Step into the future with Nabeel Mahmood as he takes you on a journey, looking back from the year 2050 to analyze the trajectory of our industry. In “Our Evolution Through the Lens of 2050,” Nabeel will delve into the pivotal moments where explore the profound future implications of our decisions. Uncover the critical lessons needed to steer towards a more informed and effective future. Join us for an eye-opening session that challenges conventional wisdom and paves the way for smarter decision-making.

As the reality of the AI revolution impacts the Data Centre Industry, we’re take a look the core factors fuelling this demand, uncovering how it’s influencing infrastructure requirements and exploring the innovative solutions which essential to meet these needs now and into the future.

Without power, there is no data centre. It is a subject written about and discussed more than any other, and is reported considerably in the world beyond the data centre industry. Yet, just as data centres are challenged and redefined by major trends impacting demand and attitudes to their services, so all issues impacting data centre power – sourcing and provision, consumption and conservation, reliability and quality – are scrutinised. This keynote will take a look at the megatrends and at the impacts these are having on power into data centres in Australia and globally.

This presentation provides a comprehensive analysis of trends, challenges, and benchmarks in data center operations gathered from industry leaders worldwide.

AI is rapidly increasing demand on energy networks, challenging power engineers to create efficient and alternative power generation solutions. This significant demand requires a shift from traditional designs to focus on fully populated system efficiency. Electrical architecture and UPS selection are becoming more critical. Additionally, AI’s power needs are driving data centres to explore alternative, non-traditional power quality solutions, including onsite generation both with and without utility availability. This presentation will explore solutions for traditional electrical architecture and alternative power generation to support the AI growth explosion in data centres

As data centres continue to expand in scale and density, they are poised to become significant consumers of power globally. This session explores strategies for data centres to not only manage their energy demands effectively but also to participate actively in energy markets and support grid stability. Drawing lessons from global markets, participants will learn about innovative approaches to balancing power demand and contributing positively to the energy ecosystem.

Whether it is escalating workloads, meeting SLAs, cutting energy or releasing additional capacity, today’s data centre teams face multiple challenges. While these goals might seem to conflict, the reality is that performing strongly in one area consistently leads to wider improvements.
However, it is at the board level that disconnects can occur, with CEOs, COOs, CFOs and CSOs tasked with intra and inter-related KPIs that are not always aligned.
For example, energy optimisation can quickly impact data centre resilience if you do not know exactly what is happening in your white space.
Factor in the impact of high-density AI workloads and liquid cooling, and things get even more complex. That is why it is imperative for operations teams to have absolute, real-time white space visibility if they are to ensure resilience and optimise performance.
Robert will discuss how tracking changes in real-time gives you the control needed to manage high-density loads while simultaneously achieving best-in-class sustainability.

This topic focuses on the remarkable progress that has positioned Southeast Asia to become a leading hub for AI and data centres. MDEC has been leading initiatives to rapidly advancing our digital infrastructure, positioning Malaysia at the forefront of AI, and attracting cutting-edge technology providers to enhance the ecosystem.

AI and high-performance applications contribute to increasing rack density which introduces new power and cooling challenges to IT Infrastructure, and the need for collaboration in the design, construction and operation of data centre critical infrastructure.

Connectivity has become a key requirement for most data centres as the services it provides are only as good as the quality of the transmission to businesses, customers and individuals.  The expectation of lower latency, higher reliability, greater speed and processing power is increasing in line with user reliance. Data centres are very much part of this transition so how can they be prepared inside and out to focus on data storage, protection and processing and also on best practice in distribution as well?

This session will investigate a number of key strategic issues that are emerging in relation to AI in Australia, including:

• Why Australia is not keeping pace with global AI advancements and the potential consequences of this lag.
• The risks which Australian industry and the Australian Government need to prepare for and how?
• The development of Sovereign AI for the Australian govt and our critical industries
• The key initiatives and policy changes we expect to see here, and
• The industry efforts required to drive this transformation to close the gap and position Australia as a leader in AI.

It has been 25 years since the NSW Government’s NABERS program began energy efficiency ratings of office buildings. Since then, the program has expanded to provide building sustainability ratings in energy efficiency, waste efficiency and waste management, to a diverse range of building sectors, including data centres. In this session, we’ll be talk about how the NABERS program has grown over the years and give insights into the global trends that have and continue to shape commercial building sustainability, including building electrification, circular economy, government policy & procurement, accounting for embodied carbon and green finance.

As data centres face the growing demands of AI, early vendor collaboration is more important than ever. This presentation addresses the challenges data centre builders and operators encounter, including longer equipment lead times and factory capacity issues. Exploring a regional customer showcase, we’ll highlight how working closely from the start can simplify design processes, reduce deviations, and lead to energy efficiency improvements. We’ll demonstrate how early collaboration and local engineering expertise ensure data centre projects meet current and future demands.

The pace of digitalization is, by pretty much all accounts, accelerating and Australia is very much part of this digital growth.  As the world becomes more data-driven, this poses some critical questions for data centers as without infrastructure for storage, processing and distribution, the data-driven world stops spinning.  What will be the key challenges to meeting demand growth in Australia and in South East Asia?  What challenges will a surge in demand for digital infrastructure present to the investment community and how are they likely to respond?

The continuing growth of the cloud adds greater urgency to ensuring the availability of the talent required across all stages of planning, designing, building,managing and operating the infrastructure and systems that cloud relies on. This panel will discuss how ‘Careers in the Cloud’ are bringing new thinking and fresh initiatives to the industry’s long term quest to attract and retain the people it needs to continue and grow.