STT GDC & Phaidra collaborate to optimise data centre cooling

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) has announced a collaboration with Phaidra to pilot an artificial intelligence (AI)-based autonomous control system for optimising data centre cooling in STT GDC’s facilities in Singapore. This initiative marks the first deployment of Phaidra’s AI-powered control systems in Asia and involves testing in a hybrid cooling environment that is more technically challenging than traditional air-cooled data centres.

Phaidra's AI systems are designed to enhance data centre cooling by analysing thousands of sensor trends in real-time to maximise energy efficiency, reliability, and cooling performance. The AI agents use deep learning models and operate in a closed-loop system, meaning they continuously learn and adapt to changing conditions such as load variations and external weather changes.

STT GDC aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 and this pilot aligns with Singapore’s vision of creating a greener data centre industry. The power needs of AI workloads continue to grow, necessitating an evolution in data centre cooling and operational infrastructure to manage the heat generated by high-performance computing requirements more effectively and sustainably.

This initiative will see selected STT GDC data centres, which combine both air-cooling and liquid-cooling solutions, incorporating Phaidra’s AI tools to support diverse computing workloads. The pilot is expected to yield an initial estimate of 10% in cooling energy savings based on existing site parameters. As the AI model receives more operational data, these energy savings could increase to as high as 30%. This pilot could serve as a model for subsequent deployments across STT GDC’s global data centre portfolio.

“Combining our expertise in delivering AI-ready data centres across major economic hubs with Phaidra’s industry-leading know-how in using AI to optimise mission-critical control systems, we are leading the way in using AI to further drive sustainability within our data centres. Through this collaboration, we are not only seeing meaningful impact on our ongoing decarbonisation efforts, but also significant efficiency gains in data centre operations that already offer a hybrid of both air and liquid cooling. This pilot is testament to our commitment to drive sustainable innovation across our data centres,” said Daniel Pointon, Group Chief Technology Officer, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres.

Jim Gao, CEO and co-founder of Phaidra, also commented on the collaboration: “Phaidra is proud to work with a leading data centre services provider like STT GDC. STT GDC’s culture of operational excellence, relentless improvement and innovation makes for a natural partnership. We look forward to driving the data centre industry forward together.”

AI is already significantly impacting the global economy. An analysis from PwC indicates that AI could potentially contribute up to USD $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, along with a boost of up to 26% in GDP for local economies by the same year. While achieving AI-readiness is essential to leverage these economic opportunities, there are also considerations regarding sustainability.

Singapore, a leading data centre hub both regionally and internationally, is well-positioned to drive sustainable innovation in the data centre space. The city-state recently announced its Green Data Centre Roadmap for sustainable growth. This roadmap includes plans to enhance data centres’ energy efficiency at both the hardware and software levels, as well as to increase the use of green energy to expand capacity.