Will high energy prices push operators to direct liquid cooling?

The data center industry and other large power-consuming industries continue to feel pressure from skyrocketing electricity prices. In Germany and France, wholesale energy prices this August increased six-fold compared to prices from 2021. The US has fared better, but wholesale electricity prices have doubled this summer compared with last year’s prices.

While leased data center operators can typically pass on these higher energy costs to tenants, many IT service providers, such as web-hosting platforms and cloud data center operators, have seen their profits erode. High energy prices contributed to the bankruptcy of the UK division of colocation and cloud provider Sungard Availability Services in March 2022, followed by a bankruptcy filing for its US and Canadian operations in April.