FrancoisAjenstat of 'Microsoft's Environmental Sustainability Blog'  posts about the "Generation 4" data centers.

This week we shared our vision for “Generation 4” modular data centers, a significant step forward that we anticipate will reshape how the industry approaches the design, build and management of data centers.

The concept behind the modular data center builds on the learning's and innovations garnered from our research and data centers like the Chicago facility, which was designed to house hundreds of shipping containers packed with up to 2500 servers each. From our experience in designing Chicago and exploring the benefits modularity can provide, we have developed our vision for the future. Our “Gen 4” modular data centers will take the flexibility of containerized servers and apply it across the entire facility, which will be composed of modular “building blocks” of prefabricated mechanical, electrical and security components, etc. in addition to containerized servers[…]

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