DATACENTERS data center
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=== Colocation ===
Colocation centers provide shared physical infrastructure, such as power, cooling, space, etc., to multiple tenants who lease space rather than building their own facilities. Colocation data centers reduce expenditure for organizations while enabling operators to achieve economies of scale in power procurement and cooling efficiency. Some of the largest data centers in the world are colocation centers, and this category accounted for about 22% of worldwide data center capacity as of 2024, making them the second-largest category by capacity after hyperscale facilities. Major colocation providers include Equinix, Switch, COPT, and Digital Realty, which operate facilities across multiple continents.
Colocation centers often host private peering connections between their customers, internet transit providers, cloud providers, meet-me rooms for connecting customers, Internet exchange points, and landing points and terminal equipment for fiber optic submarine communication cables, which are critical to connecting the internet.
=== Hyperscale ===
Hyperscale data centers are large-scale facilities, typically exceeding 100 megawatts of power capacity, designed to support massive, scalable computing workloads for cloud services, AI training, and large-scale data processing. By the end of 2024, there were 1,136 operational hyperscale data centers globally, a figure that doubled over the previous five years, with the U.S. accounting for approximately 54% of total hyperscale capacity. In particular, the three largest operators, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, collectively account for approximately 59% of all hyperscale data center capacity globally. As a growing trend, hyperscale data centers represented about 41% of worldwide data center capacity in 2024 and are projected to exceed 60% by 2029 as enterprise on-premises infrastructure continues to decline. Moreover, as artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming widely used, AI data centers are being built more rapidly, and they can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, more than conventional data centers. Since 2024, there has been widespread grassroots opposition to AI data centers.
=== Edge ===
Edge data centers are smaller facilities, typically ranging from 1 to 10 megawatts. They are positioned closer to end users or data sources to reduce network latency and support real-time applications, such as autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, and content delivery. Unlike hyperscale data centers, edge data centers are intentionally distributed across many locations rather than consolidated, with deployments occurring in urban areas, cell tower sites, as well as industrial locations. The growth of edge computing infrastructure has been tied to the expansion of 5G wireless networks and the increasing use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which generate data that is more efficiently processed near its source than transmitted to a centralized data center.
Micro data centers (MDCs) are access-level data centers that are smaller in size than traditional data centers but provide the same features. They are typically located near the data source to reduce communication delays, as their small size allows several MDCs to be spread out over a wide area. MDCs are suited to user-facing, front end applications. They are commonly used in edge computing and other areas where low latency data processing is needed.
==== Modularity and flexibility ====
Modularity and flexibility are key elements in allowing a data center to grow and change over time. Data center modules are pre-engineered, standardized building blocks that can be configured and moved as needed.
A modular data center may consist of data center equipment contained within shipping containers or similar portable containers. Components of the data center can be prefabricated and standardized, which facilitates moving if needed.
These modular data centers are useful for IT disaster recovery. Mobile data centers are also used to move large quantities of data, by physically transporting the hardware that contains it, and in cryptocurrency mining, where fleets of mobile data centers are transported to take advantage of cheaper sources of energy.
== History ==
Data centers have their roots in the huge computer rooms of the 1940s, typified by the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), one of the earliest examples of a data center. Early computer systems were complex to operate and maintain, and required a special environment in which to operate. Many cables were necessary to connect all of the components, and methods to accommodate and organize these were devised such as standard racks to mount equipment, raised floors, and cable trays (installed overhead or under the elevated floor). A single mainframe required a great deal of power and had to be cooled to avoid overheating. Security became important— computers were expensive, and were often used for government and military purposes. As such, basic design guidelines for controlling access to the computer room were devised.