Models for building and deploying new data center capacity have evolved very little in decades. The vast majority of data center operations follow a “stair step” expansion approach that relies on making large investments in new facilities and infrastructure in anticipation of demand, slowly filling up the space as utilization climbs, then building new facilities as the current ones get close to capacity.
Much data center infrastructure investment goes to large-scale, facility-wide systems like chillers and air handling units, which run at reduced efficiency (and high average cost per kW) until their optimum load is reached. At the same time, data center owners have to make significant investment in energy generation, UPS, and backup systems, which may never be used.