Key features of the DRIL include: • High-Density AI and HPC Testing. The DRIL supports AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads with high-density colocation, accommodating workloads up to 150 kW per cabinet. • AI Infrastructure Optimization. The ePlus AI Experience Center lets businesses explore AI-specific power, cooling, and GPU resource requirements in an environment optimized for AI infrastructure. • Hybrid Cloud Validation. With direct cloud connectivity, users can refine hybrid strategies and onboard through cross connects. • AI Workload Orchestration. Customers can orchestrate AI workloads across Digital Realty’s Private AI Exchange (AIPx) for seamless integration and performance. • Latency Testing Across Locations. Enterprises can test latency scenarios for seamless performance across multiple locations and cloud destinations. The firm’s Northern Virginia campus is the primary DRIL location, but companies can also test latency scenarios between there and other remote locations. DRIL rollout to other global locations is already in progress, and London is scheduled to go live in early 2026. Digital Realty, Redeployable Launch Pathway for Veteran Technical Careers As new data centers are created, they need talented workers. To that end, Digital Realty has partnered with Redeployable, an AI-powered career platform for veterans, to expand access to technical careers in the United Kingdom and United States. The collaboration launched a Site Engineer Pathway, now live on the Redeployable platform. It helps veterans explore, prepare for, and transition into roles at Digital Realty. Nearly half of veterans leave their first civilian role within a year, often due to unclear expectations, poor skill translation, and limited support, according to Redeployable. The Site Engineer Pathway uses real-world relevance and replaces vague job descriptions with an experience-based view of technical careers. Veterans can engage in scenario-based “job drops” simulating real facility and system challenges so they can assess their fit for the role before applying. They

Everest Group partner Yugal Joshi said, “CIOs are under significant pressure to clearly define their data center strategy beyond traditional one-off leases. Given most of the capacity is built and delivered by fewer players, CIOs need to prepare for a higher-price market with limited negotiation power.” The numbers bear this out. Global data center costs rose to $217.30 per kilowatt per month in the first quarter of 2025, with major markets seeing increases of 17-18% year-over-year, according to CBRE. Those prices are at levels last seen in 2011-2012, and analysts expect them to remain elevated. Gogia said, “The combination of AI demand, energy scarcity, and environmental regulation has permanently rewritten the economics of running workloads. Prices that once looked extraordinary have now become baseline.” Hyperscalers get first dibs The consolidation problem is compounded by the way capacity is being allocated. North America’s data center vacancy rate fell to 1.6% in the first half of 2025, with Northern Virginia posting just 0.76%, according to CBRE Research. More troubling for enterprises: 74.3% of capacity currently under construction is already preleased, primarily to cloud and AI providers. “The global compute market is no longer governed by open supply and demand,” Gogia said. “It is increasingly shaped by pre-emptive control. Hyperscalers and AI majors are reserving capacity years in advance, often before the first trench for power is dug. This has quietly created a two-tier world: one in which large players guarantee their future and everyone else competes for what remains.” That dynamic forces enterprises into longer planning cycles. “CIOs must forecast their infrastructure requirements with the same precision they apply to financial budgets and talent pipelines,” Gogia said. “The planning horizon must stretch to three or even five years.”

The solution is to convert power right at the GPU on the server board and to upgrade the backbone to 800 volts. That should squeeze more reliability and efficiency out of the system while dealing with the heat, Infineon stated.   Nvidia announced the 800 Volt direct current (VDC) power architecture at Computex 2025 as a much-needed replacement for the 54 Volt backbone currently in use, which is overwhelmed by the demand of AI processors and increasingly prone to failure. “This makes sense with the power needs of AI and how it is growing,” said Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “This helps mitigate power losses seen from lower voltage and AC systems, reduces the need for materials like copper for wiring/bus bars, better reliability, and better serviceability.” Infineon says a shift to a centralized 800 VDC architecture allows for reduced power losses, higher efficiency and reliability. However, the new architecture requires new power conversion solutions and safety mechanisms to prevent potential hazards and costly server downtimes such as service and maintenance.

ESUN initiative As part of its standardization efforts, Meta said it would be a key player in the new Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) initiative that brings together AMD, Arista, ARM, Broadcom, Cisco, HPE Networking, Marvell, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI and Oracle to advance the networking technology to handle the growing scale-up domain for AI systems. ESUN will focus solely on open, standards-based Ethernet switching and framing for scale-up networking—excluding host-side stacks, non-Ethernet protocols, application-layer solutions, and proprietary technologies. The group will focus on the development and interoperability of XPU network interfaces and Ethernet switch ASICs for scale-up networks, the OCP wrote in a blog. ESUN will actively engage with other organizations such as Ultra-Ethernet Consortium (UEC) and long-standing IEEE 802.3 Ethernet to align open standards, incorporate best practices, and accelerate innovation, the OCP stated. Data center networking milestones The launch of ESUN is just one of the AI networking developments Meta shared at the event. Meta engineers also announced three data center networking innovations aimed at making its infrastructure more flexible, scalable, and efficient: The evolution of Meta’s Disaggregated Scheduled Fabric (DSF) to support scale-out interconnect for large AI clusters that span entire data center buildings. A new Non-Scheduled Fabric (NSF) architecture based entirely on shallow-buffer, disaggregated Ethernet switches that will support our largest AI clusters like Prometheus. The addition of Minipack3N, based on Nvidia’s Ethernet Spectrum-4 ASIC, to Meta’s portfolio of 51Tbps OCP switches that use OCP’s Switch Abstraction Interface and Meta’s Facebook Open Switching System (FBOSS) software stack. DSF is Meta’s open networking fabric that completely separates switch hardware, NICs, endpoints, and other networking components from the underlying network and uses OCP-SAI and FBOSS to achieve that, according to Meta. It supports Ethernet-based RoCE RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE/RDMA)) to endpoints, accelerators and NICs from multiple vendors, such as Nvidia,

Keeping up with the demand comes down to performance, and more specifically, performance per watt. With power limited, OEMs have become much more involved in all aspects of the system design, rather than pulling silicon off the shelf or pulling servers or racks off the shelf. “They’re getting much more specific about what that silicon looks like, which is a big departure from where the data center was ten or 15 years ago. The point here being is that they look to create a more optimized system design to bring the acceleration closer to the compute, and get much better performance per watt,” said Awad. The Open Compute Project is a global industry organization dedicated to designing and sharing open-source hardware configurations for data center technologies and infrastructure. It covers everything from silicon products to rack and tray design.  It is hosting its 2025 OCP Global Summit this week in San Jose, Calif. Arm also was part of the Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) initiative announced this week at the Summit that included AMD, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, HPE Networking, Marvell, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia. ESUN promises to advance Ethernet networking technology to handle scale-up connectivity across accelerated AI infrastructures. Arm’s goal by joining OCP is to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration between companies and users to share ideas, specifications and intellectual property. It is known for focusing on modular rather than monolithic designs, which is where chiplets come in. For example, customers might have multiple different companies building a 64-core CPU and then choose IO to pair it with, whether like PCIe or an NVLink. They then choose their own memory subsystem, deciding whether to go HBM, LPDDR, or DDR. It’s all mix and match like Legos, Awad said.

Capital Strategy and Infrastructure Readiness The AIP consortium has outlined an initial $30 billion in equity, with potential to scale toward $100 billion including debt over time as part of a broader AI infrastructure buildout. The Aligned acquisition represents a cornerstone investment within that capital roadmap. Aligned’s “ready-to-scale” platform – encompassing land, permits, interconnects, and power roadmaps – is far more valuable today than a patchwork of single-site developments. The consortium framed the transaction as a direct response to the global AI buildout crunch, targeting critical land, energy, and equipment bottlenecks that continue to constrain hyperscale expansion. Platform Overview: Aligned’s Evolution and Strategic Fit Aligned Data Centers has rapidly emerged as a scale developer and operator purpose-built for high-density, quick-turn capacity demanded by hyperscalers and AI platforms. Beyond the U.S., Aligned extended its reach across the Americas through its acquisition of ODATA in Latin America, creating a Pan-American presence that now spans more than 50 campuses and over 5 GW of capacity. The company has repeatedly accessed both public and private capital markets, most recently securing more than $12 billion in new equity and debt financing to accelerate expansion. Aligned’s U.S.–LATAM footprint provides geographic diversification and proximity to fast-growing AI regions. The buyer consortium’s global relationships – spanning utilities, OEMs, and sovereign-fund partners – help address power, interconnect, and supply-chain constraints, all of which are critical to sustaining growth in the AI data-center ecosystem. Macquarie Asset Management built Aligned from a niche U.S. operator into a 5 GW-plus, multi-market platform, the kind of asset infrastructure investors covet as AI demand outpaces grid and supply-chain capacity. Its sale at this stage reflects a broader wave of industry consolidation among large-scale digital-infrastructure owners. Since its own acquisition by BlackRock in early 2024, GIP has strengthened its position as one of the world’s top owners