For many companies, strategies on leveraging next generation technology are shifting from artificial intelligence to real business outcomes. Executives are hesitant to invest in AI unless they foresee a predictable financial result, and sometimes those involve automating tasks that happen in real-time. That can require low latency movement of data to and from the cloud, or AI inference closer to the end user.
Scott Robohn, CEO at AI consultant Solutional, believes AI inference will require at least 10x the data center capacity required by AI training. “I think 10x will be easy. Maybe even 20x is easy,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “The further it can go to the edge – even the end-user device – the more footprint. Plenty of room for innovation here to get this as close to the point of consumption/request as possible.”
Part of that innovation comes from the tower industry. As Inside Towers reported, American Tower recently opened its first edge data center in Raleigh, NC, citing AI inference as a demand driver.
Other digital infrastructure firms are moving in the same direction. Real estate professional David Moore, CEO of NAI Global Wireless, is helping one firm develop edge data centers in order to rent space to telcos. He said the sites will be 500 – 1,000 square feet, and will be developed at locations where power and fiber are already in place.
“They are on little pads on a corner, out of way and unobtrusive,” he said, adding that the typical site will have a generator and two cabinets to house carrier equipment. He said the firm is considering a nationwide rollout of these edge data centers.
If tower companies become more active in the data center space, they could create opportunities for construction firms that typically serve the wireless industry to expand into a new market. Data centers have gotten a bad rap from some local activists who claim they eat up real estate and power without creating many jobs, but small edge data centers use fewer resources and still need construction crews to bring them online.
Data center industry veteran Dan Golding, senior advisor to investment firm MGX, recently penned a blog post on LinkedIn entitled Data Centers Bring Jobs and I’m Tired of Pretending They Don’t. “Construction professionals go from one data center project to another, some lasting many years,” he wrote. “The average American worker stays at their job for just under four years, which makes the dismissal of data center construction jobs seem very questionable. All jobs are temporary.”
By Martha DeGrasse, Inside Towers Contributing Analyst
This article represents the opinions of veteran telecom industry editor and journalist Martha DeGrasse, an Inside Towers Contributing Analyst with features appearing monthly. DeGrasse owns Network Builder Reports and contributes regularly to several publications. She was formerly a writer and editor with RCR Wireless and a TV business news producer.
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