SIP, An Alphabet Spinoff, Launches Verrus For Flexible Data Center Energy Management!

With great power comes great electricity bill!

This meme acts as a play on words referencing the popular quote from Spider-Man, which originally reads as “With great power comes great responsibility.”

However, considering how the world is embracing the digitalization of products and services, giving birth to concepts like IoT (Internet of Things), coupled with the increasing consumption of energy required to power this demand, it’s no surprise that they rack up high energy costs.

At the same time, businesses are on the lookout to adopt cost-saving and energy efficient technologies with better energy distribution capabilities. This is especially true of digital services such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing that require stronger computing power.

This is where Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners or SIP comes in. An offshoot of Alphabet (the parent company of Google), SIP aims to build and back new approaches to solve infrastructure problems observed in industries like power, broadband and waste management.

Now, SIP has come up with a new concept that could benefit data centers with flexible energy management – Verrus!

So, what will Verrus help businesses with and how does it work? Let’s explore!

What Is Verrus About?

At present, data centers gather extra power from diesel generators, while using redundant internal electrical systems.
Verrus offers an alternative, which is referred to as a “microgrid” by Jonathan Winer, SIP’s Co-founder and Co-CEO.
“Microgrids” are based on advanced, high-power batteries that use software to understand and distribute energy to specific areas, projects and applications within data centers, bringing in flexible power management and solving some challenges faced by high computing needs.
Essentially, this will help ease some challenges faced by industries with high computing needs, such as AI training, which can be handled in batches and at times of low demand.
As per Jonathan Winer, the first three data centers to include Verrus architecture will mostly be in Arizona, California and Massachusetts.
The plan is to have these data centers running by 2026 or 2027.
However, one issue the company faces is that it hasn’t signed any customers as yet. There are numerous “hyperscalers”, including primary-backer Alphabet, which has shown interest in Verrus, according to Jonathan Winer.
Others that are backing the project include Ontario Teachers’ and StepStone.

Source

What Did SIP’s CEO Say About Verrus?

“The world’s most flexible and sustainable data centers.” is what Verrus’ website describes the project as on its homepage. The company’s co-founder and co-CEO, Jonathan Winer, used “gigawatt scale ambitions”.
Winer further clarified that SIP has been developing the project for around two years and it was an offshoot that combined alternate research conducted into electricity grid management, solutions being designed for companies looking at load shifting to enhance energy consumption management and the strain that data centers had on the electrical grid.
This strain posed “a real challenge on the grid”, especially when factoring in the increase of cloud computing and AI data computations. Winer said, “In order to add what we’re going to need both of the AI challenge and just general cloud compute there’s going to have to be a new approach to energy management.”
As per the company, the solution of simply adding more data centers, which is the usual approach, isn’t a sustainable solution. To this, Winer said, “The challenge with adding data centers to the grid is not the 340 days a year that the grid isn’t maxed out.”
[Contd.] “The grid is very happy to supply power on the days when it’s not at capacity. The real challenge is the 20 days a year where for few hours a day they can’t serve the load.”
SIP also plans a Data Center Flexibility Initiative, which will help stakeholders like energy companies, tech giants and regulators collaborate.

Do you think SIP’s Verrus will taste success and help data centers manage their energy consumption soon?

Let us know in the comments below!

First published on Tue, Mar 12, 2024

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Emerging Technology Energy Management Flexible Energy Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners SIP Verrus Alphabet

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