Key Features of the World's Largest Data Center

The largest data centers in the world are equipped with state-of-the-art features and are leading the way toward the next generation of data centers.

In the digital economy, data-driven digital transformation is the force behind every business. By the end of 2022, 70% of the worldwide GDP will have undergone digitization, and there will be 200+ zettabytes of data in cloud storage by 2025. With this explosion of data, enterprises seek IT infrastructure for streamlined data management and secure data storage, leading to a steep rise in demand for data center facilities. Today, there are over 7 million data centers across the globe, and the data center market revenue is expected to see almost a 50% growth and reach $948 billion by 2030.

With emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, blockchain, etc., there is a need for new-age data centers that are prepared for the ever-changing requirements of scale, flexibility, and security and are future-ready.

The largest data centers in the world are equipped with state-of-the-art features and are leading the way toward the next generation of data centers. According to a recent report from Huawei, the new age of data centers are/will incorporate these characteristics:

1. Ultra-high density - With the increasing demand for larger servers and CPU capacity, data centers are designed to be compact, housing many hardware.
2. Scalability - Data center facilities balance their development lifecycle with the IT equipment lifecycle to optimize CapEx.
3. Sustainability - Approx 3% of the world’s power consumption is attributed to the data center industry. Modern Data Centers are shifting toward renewable electricity and recycling waste heat.
4. AI-enabled full-scale digitalization - With the continuous improvement of AI and IoT technologies, data centers adopt full lifecycle digitalization and comprehensive automation. 
5. Modularization - The most advanced data centers are built on modular designs to optimize for high levels of capital investment, long construction times, and offer shorter IT equipment life cycles.
6. The liquid and air cooling convergence - With high-density data centers emerging, the cooling systems will be built on indirect evaporative cooling techniques.
7. Trust - New-age data centers are bolstered with AI-enabled intelligent, robust security measures.
8. Dynamic efficiency measurement - Data center operators take a holistic view of driving down energy consumption.

China is home to the largest data center in the world - China Telecom. This data center is built on the most innovative and state-of-the-art features, making it not just the largest but one of the most advanced data centers in the world. Let’s look at this facility's key features that make it so magnificent.

Features of the Largest Data Center in the World - China Telecom Data Center

Source

China Telecom’s Data Center is the largest data center in the world. Located in Hohhot, China, this data center is used by large-scale telecom, cloud computing, and financial firms that generate a humongous amount of data. With an extensive global network of 400 data centers, China Telecom makes up a 50% market share in the Chinese data center market.

The China Telecom data center’s main division is situated in Inner Magnolia Information Park. This massive data center provides comprehensive computing, storage, and intelligent network resources to cloud computing and cloud data management centers alongside all-encompassing intelligent information services to governments and large-scale enterprises.

The key features that make this data center world-class are:

1. Location - The China Telecom Data Center’s main division is located in Beijing-Tianjin, an economic circle radiation belt, and is at a geographical advantage for data transmission and information services.
2. Area - The data center is built on 10,763,910 square feet and consists of cloud computing data centers, call centers, warehouses, offices, and more.
3. Transmission bandwidth - With 20 Tier-IV and more than 90 Tier-III IDCs connected to a wide range of reliable global private and public data circuits, this data center offers a huge international transmission bandwidth of over 90T and a total of 180 POPs.
4. Efficient cooling systems - The average cooling temperature is 6 °C, which makes air cooling free for almost eight months of the year. Free cooling combined with other advanced cooling technologies enables this massive data center to remain efficient.
5. Sustainability - Green data center policies minimize energy consumption, making it a sustainable facility. It utilizes virtualization and cloud computing technologies across all IDCs. The data center is located in Hohhot, the hydroelectric and thermal power resources hub. The region is also the largest thermal power generation base in Asia. This location helps China Telecom leverage an abundant, reliable yet cheap power supply.
6. Robust security and service - The facility is bolstered with robust security measures like 24x7 CCTV monitoring and a bio-authentication security system. Supported by a dedicated service team, the data center offers highly secure hosting services and an enterprise-grade service platform.
7. Reliability - The data center offers a 99.99% facility uptime service level agreement (SLA) combined with International certifications for facility management and round-the-clock technical support.
8. Redundancy - The facility offers N+1 redundancy for UPS, generators, power distribution, cooling security, and network resilience systems.
9. Modular design - The data center is built on a modular design to ensure the facility can expand in the future. The data center provides concentrated network management and enterprise services.
10. Additional services - China Telecom provides a host of solutions like network infrastructure, Unified Communication (UC), fully-managed network security including DDOs, Content Delivery Network (CDN), etc. Its managed services, such as website hosting and disaster recovery services, also make it an extension of the enterprise’s team.

Wrapping Up

The ever-expanding amounts of data generation combined with advancements in technology, increasing concerns around data security, and the need for sustainable facilities have led to the demand for future-ready data centers equipped to handle the evolving business and technology landscape.  

The new-age data centers located on vast campuses are equipped with state-of-art, hyper-scale, ultramodern, and sustainable features. They are paving the way for an exciting new era of data centers. In this article, we have also discussed China Telecom’s Data Center, the largest data center in the world, located in Hohhot, China.

At Nxtra - Airtel data center solutions, we can partner with your enterprise to design, build, and deploy data center solutions that are tailor-made for your business and equipped to meet the demands of the ever-changing business landscape. To know more about our data center solutions, contact us.