New Delhi. Realty firm Anant Raj Limited is going to invest Rs 4500 crore to set up data centres. The company has said that its subsidiary Ananth Raj Cloud Private Limited has entered into an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board, under which the company will build an IT park as well as data centers facility in Andhra Pradesh. The company has said that this investment will create 8500 direct and 7500 indirect jobs. Ananth Raj is not the only company which is building data centers in India.
Reliance Jio, Adani Group, Hiranandani Group and Tata Group and many other companies are setting up data centers in India with investments worth billions of dollars. The future belongs to tech and companies had sensed it long ago, the result of which are these data centres. But what are these, what is their work. Today we will tell you about these data centres. What are these, what is their function and why will they prove to be a gold mine for companies in future.
What are data centers?
Data center is a large and highly secure place where millions of computer servers are installed simultaneously. These servers run every service on the Internet, such as mobile apps, websites, banking systems, cloud storage, social media, video streaming and now even AI models. Simply put, the data center is the place where the Internet actually runs.
Why has their importance increased in the era of AI?
AI models require very powerful servers to run, train and store them. For:
- massive computing power
- high speed network
- large scale data storage
- constant power
- cooling system
All these are present in one place, in the data center.
Today, data centers are the backbone of AI models like ChatGPTT, self-driving car, face recognition, medical AI. The faster AI is growing, the more the need for data centers is increasing. Every new AI model means more servers, more power and more data centers.
What do data centers do every day?
The work of a data center is not just about storing data, there are many layers of activities in it every day:
1. Processing data on servers
Like loading of social media posts, running of bank transactions, output of AI model.
2. Managing data storage
Videos, photos, audio, documents, app data everything remains safe here.
3. Running a cloud service
Services like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud operate continuously from here.
4. Managing network traffic
Data centers work to send and receive data to different parts of the world so that everything runs in real time.
5. Security and Backup
Thousands of cyber attacks occur every day. Data centers stop them and keep making backups.
6. AI Training and Inference
To train AI, GPU servers are run, which require a lot of computing.
What is required to run a data center
1. Too much electricity
A large data center consumes as much electricity as an entire city.
AI’s GPU racks draw a lot of power.
2. Advanced Cooling System
Servers heat up constantly. For cooling, liquid cooling, air cooling, water-cooled chiller, diesel generator and UPS system remain active all the time.
3. High Speed Fiber Network
Data has to be sent anywhere in the world in milliseconds. For this, optical fiber, routers, switches and internet backbone are required.
4. High-Performance Hardware
GPU servers, CPU racks, storage arrays, backup racks all cost lakhs and crores.
Future of data center in the era of AI
- Because of AI, data centers are becoming the most powerful infrastructure in the world.
- The demand for AI training is going to increase 10 times by 2030.
- New data centers worth 5 billion dollars are going to be built in India in the next 5 years.
- Every country is considering AI compute as a part of national security.
It is clear that just as electricity, roads and internet were basic needs, data centers will also become a basic need in the future.
