” Now, with AI, GPUs need data to do a lot of compute and send that back to another GPU. That connection needs to be close together, and that is what’s pushing the density, the chips are more powerful and so on, but the necessity of everything being close together is what’s driving this big revolution,” he said.
That revolution in new architecture is new data center designs. Cordovil said that instead of putting the power shelves within the rack, system administrators are putting a sidecar next to those racks and loading the sidecar with the power system, which serves two to four racks. This allows for more compute per rack and lower latency since the data doesn’t have to travel as far.
The problem is that 1 mW racks are uncharted territory and no one knows how to manage the power, which is considerable now. ”There’s no user manual that says, hey, just follow this and everything’s going to be all right. You really need to push the boundaries of understanding how to work. You need to start designing something somehow, so that is a challenge to data center designers,” he said.
And this brings up another issue: many corporate data centers have power plugs that are like the ones that you have at home, more or less, so they didn’t need to have an advanced electrician certification. “We’re not playing with that power anymore. You need to be very aware of how to connect something. Some of the technicians are going to need to be certified electricians, which is a skills gap in the market that we see in most markets out there,” said Cordovil.
A CompTIA A+ certification will teach you the basics of power, but not the advanced skills needed for these increasingly dense racks. Cordovil admits the issue has yet to be fully addressed.
“I don’t think the industry has converged in a direction yet. Data center operators have struggled with shortage of well-trained and experienced technical workforce for years, and this is only adding pressure to an already existing structural challenge,” he said.
