Interact Team | Jan. 6, 2023

As we embrace the challenges and opportunities that 2023 will bring, we bring you a roundup of our latest articles in case you missed them.

The Interact team have been busy bringing the sustainability agenda to the attention of the data centre and enterprise sectors by advocating for a future in which energy consumption is reduced without compromising performance.

Leading experts in the fields of technology and sustainability, Rich Kenny and Astrid Wynne have written extensively in the industry press about the need to reduce energy consumption, highlighting the industry-wide issue that until recently data centres have focused solely on the infrastructure when it comes to improving sustainability.

Building on their ground-breaking research, the team has been addressing the need to tackle energy consumption, not only of the infrastructure, but also of the IT within data centres (IT is responsible for 70% of the average data centre’s energy bill) if the sector wants to get serious about sustainability.

The Future is Efficient

In Rich Kenny’s article for issue 46 of the Intelligent Data Centres magazine, he addresses the question, ‘Can we keep the lights on, power cars and run data centres?’. Examining the current energy crisis and future pressure on energy use, he maintains that data centres will increasingly have to run more operations for the energy it uses. Using Interact to increase efficiency in data centres will enable them to run smoothly in a future of increased electricity demand and, as we look to alternatives, increasing demand on the earth’s resources.

Constructive Tech Movement

Mark Zuckerberg’s oft-quoted mantra ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ has come to mean innovation at any cost. In ‘Move Fast and Fix Things’, Head of Sustainability at Interact Astrid Wynne argues that, rather than using technology to disrupt and break things, it’s time to use it to fix our broken systems.

In her article published in the DCM Buyer’s Guide 2022, Astrid covers environmental risk and the recent move of financial experts towards investing in companies with the right ESG strategy. She maintains data centres who adopt a good sustainability strategy early on are conferred a sizeable competitive advantage over those who are slow to embrace change.

Moore’s Law Decline

In Data Centre Dynamics, Rich reveals the biggest open secret in tech and what it means for your  server estate. It centres around our research team’s discovery of the decline in Moore’s Law, something Google and AMD have also acknowledged and subsequently made changes to their chip architecture. The result is that data centres will have to have a more evolved approach to server architecture that assesses workload, configuration and performance as one. Rich discusses how this can be achieved using our granular transparent grading mechanism.

Sustainability Benefits for the Sector

As leading industry figures, Rich and Astrid were approached recently by Intelligent Data Centres magazine to respond to the Editor’s Question ‘How can data centre leaders ensure they move beyond intention to put sustainability into action?’

Their response is a call to data centre leaders to commit to a carbon agenda, and to not only focus on energy efficiency but also on material reductions. In it, they argue that, as well as environmental benefits, there are customer, investment and employee engagement and retention benefits to adopting a strong sustainability plan.

Digital Sobriety en France

Hot on the heels from her appearance on the Energy Efficiency panel at Data Centre World Paris, Astrid takes on the topic of ‘decarbonizing digital activities through refurbishment’ for French industry journal Valeur énergie. Astrid writes about the need to increase server efficiency and reduce energy consumption in the era of digital sobriety.

Go Configure

Organisations are increasingly being asked to answer for the sustainability of their operations and supply chains. In the DCM 2022 Winter Edition, Rich reveals how data centres can future proof both new and legacy server estates by measuring their hardware efficiency and through reconfiguration of their servers.

Prize-winning Technology

To finish the year, the Yorkshire Post celebrated Interact’s astonishing success in the fields of technology and sustainability with a feature that recognised our region’s talent.

According to a report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Hull and East Yorkshire has been named as the ‘fastest growing region’ for digital. By 2025, Yorkshire’s digital sector could add £1.6bn to the region’s economy and create more than 42,000 new jobs.

In December, we fought off Microsoft to win the prestigious DCD Award for Energy Impact and the Yorkshire Post picked up the story. This award highlights the sort of innovative businesses in Yorkshire that can take on the biggest names in the world. What a great end to another incredible year for Interact!

Look out for more industry articles coming soon in early 2023.

Interact delivers low carbon, energy efficient data centres. To find out how we can help your organisation, get in touch today.