Forbes interviews IBM to discuss data centers in China.

IBM: China the Biggest Data Center Buyer

Dec. 6 2010 - 9:23 pm | 1,559 views | 0 recommendations | 0 comments

Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife

China is on track to be IBM’s biggest customer for big data centers, according to a senior official with the company. Matter of fact, the so-called “developing world” may soon outstrip the more advanced one.

“Forty percent of out business is now from ‘Growth Countries,’” said Steve Sams, IBM vice president for Global Site and Facilities Services. “This year China will probably be a bigger customer for (new data centers) than the U.S.”

Now in the US, I don't know of any of the top data centers designed by IBM.  As far as I know the data center designs by IBM are outsourced.  In fact, I know of two specific projects that started with IBM went on for years and were eventually engineered by RTKL and HP's critical facilities group and IBM was removed from the project.

“We recently retrofitted one data center in China with 1.2 million square feet,” he said. “A telecom company with 20 million people there is small.”

Part of the problem selling in China is the resources and manpower required.  Which IBM has.  Most data center engineering groups are less than hundred engineers.

Even when you count IBM's showcase Blue Water Supercomputer scheduled to be the top Supercomputer in a 15 MW facility.

About the Blue Waters project

Blue Waters is expected to be one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. It will have a peak performance of 10 petaflops (10 quadrillion calculations every second) and will achieve sustained performance of 1 petaflop running a range of science and engineering codes.

Scientists will create breakthroughs in nearly all fields of science using Blue Waters. They will predict the behavior of complex biological systems, understand how the cosmos evolved after the Big Bang, design new materials at the atomic level, predict the behavior of hurricanes and tornadoes, and simulate complex engineered systems like the power distribution system and airplanes and automobiles.

Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, its National Center for Supercomputing Applications, IBM, and the Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale Computation. It is supported by the National Science Foundation and the University of Illinois.

Blue Waters will be based on POWER7 hardware from IBM—makers of more than one-third of the world's 500 fastest computers and almost all of the 40 most "green" supercomputers. It will be the first of apowerful new system design from IBM. The design includes extensive research and development in new chip technology, interconnect technology, operating systems, compiler, and programming environments.

Guess who engineered the high performance power and water cooling systems.  IBM?  No.

HP's EYP Critical Facilities

The data center engineering group has little leverage to say hey we designed that building.

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I wonder home many data centers the Chinese will need to build before they figure out how to engineer their own?

HP participates in the Suzhou Industrial Park Data Center located near Shangai.

Chinese Cloud Computing On HP's Menu In Suzhou

October 28, 2010 |

Hewlett-Packard has announced that it has established a new information service center and the Chinese hub of its Best Shore global outsourcing service center in Suzhou, to provide customized information technology consulting and outsourcing services to its clients in eastern China.

Named Suzhou Hewlett-Packard Information Service Company Ltd., the new company is currently cooperating with Suzhou International Science Data Center in the construction of a cloud computing platform for the Suzhou Industrial Park, and to help the operation and management of the park to ensure the availability and flexibility of its information technology system, so as to upgrade the service and management level of the park and to improve its investment environment.

Here are pictures from the opening ceremony.

Suzhou International Science-Park Data Center in 4T Standard Opens

The guests of honor activate the ceremony

Suzhou International Science-Park Data Center, the largest third-party data center in East China built by the highest international standard (T4), officially opened for business on October 28. With 840 million yuan investment from Suzhou Industrial Pak (SIP), the Center specializes in providing professional data services of international first-class network communication, information security, data disaster recovery, high performance computing and integrated management system for hi-tech R&D enterprises at home and abroad, enterprises in modern service sector and new-emerging Internet service suppliers, and etc. 

Ma Minglong (R), Executive Member of CPC Suzhou Municipal Committee and Secretary of SIP Party Working Committee, confers the plaque to strategic partners of the Center

And more details on the facilites.

Located in SIP Innovation Industry Park with 42,000-square-meter construction area, the Center is constructed and operated by Suzhou International Science Data Co., Ltd (SISDC). According to the plan, the Center will focus on value-added services of data management, high-performance computing and system integration based on the service strategy of "combination of independent operation and cooperation" and strive to build up the largest center of data disaster recovery, cloud computing and IT outsourcing services in Jiangsu Province and even in East China. Meanwhile, the establishment of the Center fills up the blank of value-added business of Jiangsu Data center. 

The monitoring room of the Center

The Center is located in A2 Building, Innovation Industry Park, 328 Xinghu St.

Some friends have been asking about what is going on in China with data centers.  For a while I have been kind of lazy knowing studying China is not easy and difficult.  Always up for a good challenge when someone asks a question, I started digging and have now added "China" category.

Here is Dell's plans for a data centers in China.

Dell Plans To Build Two New Data Centers In China

November 16, 2010 | Category: Business, Computing

The international PC maker Dell, who is on its way of transferring to a services and solutions provider, has announced plans to build two new data centers in China within one year.

Steve Schuckenbrock, president of large enterprise for Dell, said at a press conference in Hong Kong that Dell will keep an open attitude towards acquisitions. Its acquisitions will focus on appropriateness, instead of scale. Schuckenbrock emphasized that Dell will keep investing in the Chinese market and will continue to enlarge its recruitment in China.

Dell previously announced that it will build its second Chinese operation center, integrating manufacturing, customer service and sales, in Chengdu; and promised to invest USD100 billion in China in the next ten years. The investments will be used for purchase, production construction, and recruitment.

Here is the specific Dell Data Center announcement.

Rong revealed that Dell will build data centers in China within one year, in the form of joint ventures to make them be consistent with Chinese laws and regulations. However, Rong did not disclose which company Dell will cooperate with to build the data centers and the detailed investments for the data centers.

It is much too complex to discuss in one blog entry the issues for building data centers in China.  The good thing is Dell, HP, IBM, Digital Realty Trust and Equinix are all starting data center projects in China.

With China's investment in renewable energy we can hope green data centers will be a priority as China plans its future data center growth.