Executive Summary
- As the data centre industry continues to evolve, resource demands will continue to impact how data centres are designed.
- Naturebased design, heatreuse partnerships, biodiversity projects, and community engagement are becoming essential design requirements.
- Charlotte Ware, Director of Design, atNorth explains how this is an exciting opportunity to change the industry norm and reduce our energy losses.
The data centre industry is growing at an incredible pace, with the global market estimated to expand at a 14% CAGR through 2030. As demand for high-performance infrastructure continues to increase, many factors have arisen that are fueling even faster innovation in the design of these facilities.
The combination of AIdriven compute, tightening grid capacity, and environmental and social pressures means that traditional models are no longer fit for purpose. As a result, data centre operators are reengineering facilities from the ground up. This means shifting towards highvoltage power architectures, batteryfirst resilience, advanced cooling systems, and deeper integration with power networks and local communities.
In traditional data centre environments, rack densities typically ranged between 5 to 10 kilowatts. AI workloads have pushed this to 30, 50 kW, and even beyond. atNorth is already designing for over 200kW per rack – a shift that increasingly moves planning into the megawattscale rack era.
The 800‑volt revolution
As a result, every part of the design stack is affected: electrical topology, networking, cooling distribution, floor space allocation and longterm scalability. For operators with legacy sites, retrofitting architectures to support MW-scale racks is complex, lengthy, and expensive. Newer data centre buildings are often more modular, which means they can be more easily adjusted in line with evolving hardware, deployed at speed, and scaled with demand.
One of the most significant transformations underway is the move from traditional medium‑voltage distribution to 800–840V data centre architectures. Every voltage step in a data centre introduces losses, heat and inefficiency. By removing multiple transformation stages, operators can deliver power more efficiently and reduce the energy overhead that has long been accepted as unavoidable.
This shift is being accelerated by the demands of modern AI hardware. NVIDIA’s latest rack designs are built around 800V DC systems – other manufacturers including AMD’s Helios platform, are moving in a similar direction by using +/- 400V bipolar DC configuration. This signals that operators will soon need to support multiple high‑voltage ecosystems rather than a single vendor standard.
To support the next generation of AI training, we need to reshape power infrastructure to accommodate greater supply loads – an exciting opportunity to change the industry norm and reduce our energy losses.
Battery-first resilience
For decades, diesel generators have been the backbone of data centre resilience. While there are lesser polluting options available, some clients now accept Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) as their primary backup.
These systems provide instant backup power during grid outages, stabilise power quality, and handle rapid load surges from AI workloads. They have the potential to replace the need for backup generators for many AI applications.. Crucially, BESS is valuable not just for onsite backup; data centre operators can also use batteries for peak shaving, demand response, and flexibility services, helping to strengthen local electricity networks.
Regulators recognise this gridsupport potential, signalling a fundamental shift: data centres are increasingly expected to operate as stabilising assets within the energy ecosystem, not just highdemand consumers. BESS sits at the centre of that transition.
Evidencing value
Data centres can no longer be siloed industrial buildings. Municipalities and local residents alike are increasingly demanding evidence of environmental sustainability and the value that data centres can bring to their communities. Naturebased design, heatreuse partnerships, biodiversity projects, and community engagement are becoming essential design requirements.
Frameworks such as the Living Building Challenge, a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification programme, define measures of sustainability in built environments and can better guide construction and operational decisions.
There are a multitude of factors that can be considered and evaluated here. For example, green façades, living walls and other visual sustainability features are often requested as part of data centre design. Yet these can be water‑intensive, expensive, and even a potential fire risk.
Similarly, while there has been negative publicity about some data centres using large amounts of water for infrastructure cooling purposes, technologies such as Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) circulate a finite amount of water, so once filled, no additional water is required.
Modern water‑cooled racks can operate at higher temperatures, reducing energy consumption and unlocking more efficient heat‑recovery opportunities. As global temperatures rise, cooling loads will increase, making hightemperature water cooling and efficient heatrecovery systems even more critical for longterm resilience.
One of the most successful ways to reduce the carbon footprint of data centres is to recycle surplus heat from the cooling process for use in the local community, within district heating systems, or for neighboring businesses such as local greenhouses – turning waste heat into a community asset.
The evolving data centre ecosystem
As this industry continues to evolve, resource demands will continue to impact how data centres are designed. Material scarcity, including copper and aluminum, will drive an increasing need to explore superconductors as future alternatives.
Defined by long-term foresight, community impact, highvoltage power, batteryfirst resilience, energy-efficient cooling, heat reuse, and gridaware planning, Nordic operators are uniquely positioned to lead the next wave of innovation in data centre design.
Yet, we cannot do it alone. Meeting the future digital needs of our society will require collaboration with governments, energy providers, and regulatory and legislative bodies to incorporate data centres into long-term planning alongside essential civic infrastructure.
