Credit: STT GDC
Singapore-based technology company Red Dot Analytics has struck a deal to leverage its industrial artificial intelligence (AI) services to give Chinese data centre cluster operator Big Data Exchange (BDx) a hand in digitally transforming its facilities.
Originally spun-off by scientists and graduates from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (NTU Singapore), Red Dot Analytics provides a cognitive digital twin solution designed to digitalise, optimise and automate data centre operations and management.
It is hoped Red Dot’s engagement, and its digital twin technology, will help to make BDx's facilities more efficient and sustainable.
The first phase of the three-year project between the two companies will focus on cooling and power usage effectiveness (PUE) optimisation at BDx's facilities in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Specifically, the agreement is expected to enable BDx to identify inefficiencies throughout its facilities by leveraging Red Dot's data centre solution, which integrates AI-driven applications and automation.
As a result, it is hoped that BDx will gain deeper insight into its data centre lifecycle management, delivering lower energy costs, less human error and increased capacity utilisation.
"BDx will have a stronger ability to identify and prevent potential hotspots and other thermal safety concerns within the data centre," said Yonggang Wen, chief scientist at Red Dot Analytics. "Cooling regulation and optimisation will result in a PUE optimisation of up to 5 per cent.
“The increased efficiencies will lead to additional savings for BDx and its customers in a more sustainable environment,” he added.
Ultimately, BDx hopes to reduce its carbon emissions and footprint, an increasingly critical aspect of competition between data centre operators across the region. This factor is also becoming a major condition of operation as governments tighten environmental regulations around data centre infrastructure.
For example, Singapore, which is home to one of BDx's data centres, supplies a major portion of the data centre needs across the Asia Pacific region, but a data centre moratorium has been implemented in the city-state while government officials address concerns over data centre sustainability.
"RDA's artificial intelligence-based technology will provide visibility into our systems to identify ways we can increase performance and sustainability without compromising the safety standards required for mission-critical infrastructure," said Jeremy Yew, BDx COO.
"This focus on energy and operational efficiency will help us advance our operations and increase our quality of service," he added.
In June, it was revealed that Red Dot Analytics, along with fellow Singapore tech players Keppel Data Centres, Ascenix, CoolestDC and New Media Express, had joined forces with two of Singapore’s top universities in a bid to build data centre solutions for tropical climates.
The companies teamed up with the National University of Singapore (NUS) and NTU Singapore as part of a new S$23 million research program aimed at developing innovative and sustainable cooling solutions for data centres in tropical locations.
