On July 18th, 2024, the global tech industry was rocked by a massive IT outage that affected businesses worldwide. The outage was caused by a cybersecurity program failure from security firm CrowdStrike, which disrupted Microsoft’s Windows operating system, Azure cloud, and 365 office software services. This led to widespread computer system failures, impacting airlines, banks, and the London Stock Exchange.
In response to the crisis, Microsoft advised customers to restore their systems from a backup before 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July. While the underlying cause of the issue was fixed, some Microsoft 365 apps and services were still experiencing residual impact.
As the industry grappled with the fallout from the IT outage, Elea Digital Data Centers announced a strategic expansion plan in Brazil to meet the increasing demand for data centers in the region. The $1 billion investment plan includes the acquisition of two data center campuses in greater São Paulo and an expansion of up to 100 MW in the coming years.
In the US, TA Realty and EdgeConneX unveiled plans to develop a 324 MW data center campus in Atlanta, Georgia, and Crusoe Energy Systems is building a 200 MW facility in Texas. Additionally, EdgeCore purchased land in Virginia to develop a 1.4 million sq ft data center campus capable of supporting 216 MW of critical IT load.
In Europe, AtlasEdge acquired land for a second data center in Barcelona, Spain, with plans to deliver 10 MW by 2027 and potentially increase capacity to 24 MW.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced the FASST initiative to harness artificial intelligence for science, security, and technology. The initiative aims to build the world’s most powerful integrated scientific AI systems in collaboration with academic and industry partners. The role of data centers in the FASST program remains to be seen, as one of the key pillars is the development of frontier-scale AI computing infrastructure and platforms.
In executive news, Lisa Spelman, a veteran of Intel, was appointed as CEO of Cornelis Networks, an AI startup focused on high-performance networking. Robert Dunn was named CEO of Start Campus, a sustainability-focused data center development firm, and Shafaq Hedstrom joined Cologix as chief energy strategy officer.
These developments highlight the dynamic and evolving nature of the data center industry, as companies continue to invest in new technologies, expand their operations, and push the boundaries of innovation to meet the growing demands of the digital economy. Subscribe to the Data Center Knowledge newsletter to stay updated on the latest news and developments in the data center industry.
Data Center Knowledge: Data Center News Roundup: Microsoft Cloud Services Hit by Global Outage
Data Center Knowledge provides an update on Microsoft’s global outage affecting their cloud services. The outage highlights the importance of reliable power systems in data centers. For more information, visit the full article at the link provided.