Data center trends 2025: Sustainable practices to support increased AI demand

For Vertiv’s experts, sustainability, collaboration, cybersecurity and regulations are expected to be among the key trends in the data center industry in 2025.

The year 2025 is expected to see businesses continue with their investments in Generative AI. While businesses are eager to get the best ROI from their GenAI investments, the infrastructure that enables this also needs to be able to support the increasing demand.

As data is key for any GenAI use case, data centers play a vital role in ensuring businesses can not only manage their data properly but have constant access to it securely. The data center industry itself is already applying AI to some processes as it looks to reduce the complexities for customers to manage them.

For Vertiv, its experts anticipate increased industry innovation and integration to support high-density computing, regulatory scrutiny around AI, as well as increasing focus on sustainability and cybersecurity efforts.

According to Giordano Albertazz, CEO of Vertiv, the data center’s experts have identified the proliferation of AI and the need to transition to more complex liquid- and air-cooling strategies as a trend for 2024. He believes the activity on that front is expected to further accelerate and evolve in 2025.

“With AI driving rack densities into three- and four-digit kWs, the need for advanced and scalable solutions to power and cool those racks, minimize their environmental footprint, and empower these emerging AI Factories has never been higher. We anticipate significant progress on that front in 2025, and our customers demand it,” saod Albertazz.

Vertiv’s team of experts have predicted five trends that they feel will be most likely to emerge across the data center industry in 2025. The first trend will see data centers focus on innovation in power and cooling infrastructure to keep pace with computing densification.

Given the increase in AI workloads, the experts predict advanced computing will continue to shift from CPU to GPU to leverage the latter’s parallel computing power and the higher thermal design point of modern chips.

“This will further stress existing power and cooling systems and push data center operators toward cold-plate and immersion cooling solutions that remove heat at the rack level. Enterprise data centers will be impacted by this trend, as AI use expands beyond early cloud and colocation providers,” they said.

The experts also pointed out that with the increased need for UPS systems, batteries, power distribution equipment and switchgear with higher power densities for AI racks to handle AI loads that can fluctuate from a 10% idle to a 150% overload in a flash. Hybrid cooling systems will also not only be increasingly paired with their own high-density UPS systems but also evolve in rackmount, perimeter and row-based cabinet models that can be deployed in brown/greenfield applications.

“Servers will increasingly be integrated with the infrastructure needed to support them, including factory-integrated liquid cooling, ultimately making manufacturing and assembly more efficient, deployment faster, equipment footprint smaller, and increasing system energy efficiency,” said the experts.

The next trend for 2025 will see data centers prioritize energy availability challenges. Sustainability remains part of the plan for most organizations and data centers will want to focus on prioritizing and seeking out energy-efficient solutions and energy alternatives that are new to this arena.

“Fuel cells and alternative battery chemistries are increasingly available for microgrid energy options. Longer-term, multiple companies are developing small modular reactors for data centers and other large power consumers, with availability expected around the end of the decade. Progress on this front bears watching in 2025,” explained the experts.

The third trend will see increase increased collaboration to drive AI Factory development. Vertiv’s experts pointed out that for an industry that supported an average density of 8.2kW in 2020, the predictions of AI Factory racks of 500 to 1000kW or higher soon represent an unprecedented disruption. Given this, chip developers, customers, power and cooling infrastructure manufacturers, utilities and other industry stakeholders will increasingly partner to develop and support transparent roadmaps to enable AI adoption.

“In the coming year, chip makers, infrastructure designers and customers will increasingly collaborate and move toward manufacturing partnerships that enable true integration of IT and infrastructure,” they said.

The focus on cybersecurity is also expected to be a trend in 2025, especially with cybercriminals also leveraging AI to launch more sophisticated attacks. Cybersecurity experts, network administrators and data center operators will need to keep pace by developing their own sophisticated AI security technologies.

For Vertiv’s experts, while the fundamentals and best practices of defense in depth and extreme diligence remain the same, the shifting nature, source and frequency of attacks add nuance to modern cybersecurity efforts.

Lastly, Vertiv’s experts expect the potential for regulations to increasingly address the use of AI itself in 2025. There is no doubt that governments and regulatory bodies around the world are racing to assess the implications of AI and develop governance for its use.

“Initial steps will be focused on applications of the technology, but as the focus on energy and water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions intensifies, regulations could extend to types of AI application and data center resource consumption. In 2025, governance will continue to be local or regional rather than global, and the consistency and stringency of enforcement will widely vary,” they explained.

Data centers in Asia Pacific

In Asia Pacific, the trends will be similar as well. The region continues to record increasing investments in data center expansion. AI spending is not showing any signs of slowing down and the demand for more compute power will only increase. Data center providers in the region are already preparing to deal with the challenges in the region.

In Southeast Asia, Vertiv has increased its presence as well, opening new offices and data centers around the region. According to Paul Churchill, Vice President and General Manager of Vertiv Asia, AI adoption is accelerating across the Asia Pacific region, with enterprises in markets like Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia leading the way in harnessing AI for transformation. He believes this will unlock new levels of efficiency, enhancing customer experiences, and solving complex challenges with agility.

“Our predicted trends for 2025 highlight the critical need for investment in energy-efficient and innovative digital infrastructure to unlock AI’s full potential. At Vertiv, we are ready to support our customers with a comprehensive portfolio of end-to-end critical digital infrastructure solutions that address the challenges of high-performance computing environments," said Churchill.