Equinix opens co-innovation facility for data solutions

Equinix has recently opened a co-innovation facility in Washington, D.C, with the intent of leveraging solutions for its IBX data centers in Australia and around the globe.

The new solutions will allow Equinix to operate these data centers with high energy-efficiency standards and also provide other innovative solutions such as fuel cell and liquid cooling technologies.

Acting as a component of Equinix's Data Center of the Future initiative, the CIF is a new component that enables partners to work with Equinix on trialling and developing innovations.

It is located at the DC15 International Business Exchange (IBX®) data center at the Equinix Ashburn Campus in Washington and will be open for collaborations from a wide variety of partners.

A current example of the new technology being implemented can be found in the production of Bloom Energy fuel cells, which are being rolled out at Equinix's most recent international business exchange in Silicon Valley.

"Building upon our continued collaboration with Equinix, we're proud to bring our solution to the CIF and move the industry toward a more sustainable future," says Bloom Energy VP product management Deia Bayoumi.

"By generating power on-site with high levels of power availability and needed resiliency, data centers can take control of their sustainable energy needs. Bloom's technology eliminates reliance on electricity utilities to meet capacity requirements as well as highly pollutive diesel generators to provide backup power.

Further sustainable innovations, including liquid cooling, high-density cooling, intelligent power management and on-site prime power generation, will be incubated in the CIF. These will be completed in partnership with a variety of data center technology innovators, including Bloom Energy, Zutacore, Virtual Power Systems (VPS) and Natron.

When collaborating with Equinix, these partners will test core and edge technologies with a focus on proving reliability, efficiency and cost to build.

Some of the key current innovations along with Bloom technology are:

High-density liquid cooling (ZutaCore) 

This collaboration utilises the production of highly efficient, direct-on-chip, waterless, two-phase liquid-cooled rack systems capable of cooling upwards of 100 kW per rack in a light, compact design. This is said to eliminate the risk of IT meltdown, minimise use of scarce resources including energy, land, construction and water, and shrink the data center footprint.

Software-defined power (VPS) with cabinet-mounted battery energy storage (Natron Energy)

This is related to the production of a cabinet power management and battery energy storage system that manages power draw and minimises power stranding to near 0%. This will, in turn, lead to a potential 30-50% improvement in power efficiency.