L&T Cloudfiniti: Focus on innovation and service excellence

India’s data centre (DC) market is experiencing massive growth, driven by increasing internet penetration, cloud computing and a surge in the digital transformation across enterprises. This provides several opportunities for players such as L&T Cloudfiniti, which aims to emerge as a formidable player in India’s DC and cloud infrastructure space. In an interview with tele.net, Seema Ambastha, chief executive officer, L&T Cloudfiniti, talks about the company’s recent initiatives, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) in revolutionising data centres, the company’s sustainability initiatives and future growth plans. Edited excerpts…

What are L&T Cloudfiniti’s key focus areas? What are some of the key initiatives being undertaken?

L&T Cloudfiniti’s Sriperumbudur hyperscale DC focuses on cutting-edge technology, operational excellence and environmental sustainability. This state-of-the-art facility is designed to meet the evolving demands of the digital economy, while maintaining the highest standards of efficiency and green practices. A key feature of the Sriperumbudur DC park is its uptime Tier III design, ensuring 99.99 per cent uptime, with robust redundancy and failover systems for power and cooling, guaranteeing high availability and reliability for critical applications. The data centre also boasts an India Green Building Council (IGBC) Platinum rating.

The DC park is tailored to the expansive needs of hyperscale cloud services and enterprise operations. With an IT load of 30 MW and 24 kVA and above, it is designed  to support ultra high density racks, with hybrid cooling to address the modern computing environment demands. Advanced cooling methodologies such as RDHX, direct liquid cooling, liquid immersion cooling and in-row cooling efficiently manage high density AI workloads.

Our commitment to energy efficiency is evident in our achievement of power usage effectiveness (PUE <1.5), setting a benchmark for energy efficiency. The focus is also on green power sourcing and renewable energy projects, including a captive solar power system with rooftop solar panels for entire facility power and lighting.

What are your thoughts on the use of AI in the data centre domain? What will be the use cases of GenAI in data centres?

AI is revolutionising the way we build and operate critical facilities. AI’s capabilities in analysing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and making real-time decisions are ushering in a new generation of intelligent data centres. The power of AI in today’s DCs spans the following areas.

Operational efficiency: AI excels at automating tasks and optimising resource allocation. It dynamically adjusts workload distribution based on real-time demands, ensuring servers are neither overworked nor underutilised.

Energy optimisation: AI algorithms analyse power consumption patterns and environmental conditions to optimise cooling systems. They adjust temperature set points, fan speeds and airflow paths to reduce energy waste, while maintaining optimal server temperatures.

Enhanced security: AI sifts through vast amounts of security data to identify anomalies and potential threats in real time.

Predictive maintenance and capacity planning: By analysing sensor data from servers, cooling systems and power supplies, AI foresees potential issues and prompts pre-emptive measures.

Fault detection and resolution: AI quickly identifies and diagnoses issues within a data centre, from network problems to hardware failures, by providing recommendations, reducing downtime and improving service reliability.

Automation and orchestration: AI-driven orchestration tools manage the deployment and configuration of applications across the data centre infrastructure.

GenAI is also revolutionising the data centre domain by enhancing design, operations and maintenance. It optimises infrastructure design and planning, creates synthetic data for testing, automates content creation and provides intelligent virtual assistants for real-time guidance, enhancing productivity. GenAI also offers adaptive cooling solutions and enables self-healing infrastructure, which detects, diagnoses and fixes issues automatically, ensuring continuous and reliable operations.

“Rising global demand for computing power is driving rapid data centre expansion.”

What are your thoughts on sustainability in the data centre domain? What initiatives has the company undertaken in this regard?

Sustainability in data centres is no longer a mere consideration but a critical imperative. The rising global demand for computing power is driving rapid data centre expansion, leading to significant energy consumption and environmental impact. By leveraging advanced technologies and innovative design strategies, we can transform data centres into more sustainable and environmentally friendly facilities.

The key aspects of sustainability in data centres include energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, water conservation, waste reduction and carbon footprint reduction.

AI is a powerful tool that can drive significant improvements in data centre sustainability. There are several key ways in which AI contributes to this, such as the following:

Dynamic energy management: AI optimises energy consumption by dynamically adjusting power usage based on real-time demand. Machine learning algorithms analyse usage patterns and predict future needs, allowing more efficient energy distribution.

Predictive maintenance: AI predicts equipment failures, enabling proactive maintenance that prevents energy waste from malfunctioning or inefficient equipment.

Effciency cooling systems: AI-driven cooling solutions optimise the use of cooling resources, ensuring that only the necessary amount of cooling is applied. AI adjusts cooling based on the real-time heat output of servers, significantly reducing energy consumption.

Workload optimisation: AI balances workloads across servers to ensure computing resources are used efficiently. By optimally distributing workloads, AI reduces the energy required for data processing and minimises idle server time.

Renewable energy integration: AI manages the integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power, into the data centre’s energy mix.

Carbon emission monitoring and reduction: AI monitors carbon emissions in real time and suggests measures to reduce the carbon footprint, including optimising energy consumption, enhancing operational efficiency and adopting green technologies.

In addition, our commitment to sustainability is exemplified by our IGBC Platinum-rated buildings, which reflect the highest standards of environmental performance.

What are the challenges faced by the data centre industry? How can these be addressed?

Some of the primary challenges faced by the data centre industry and strategies to address them are given below.

High energy consumption: To tackle high energy consumption, data centres can invest in energy-efficient hardware, use AI-driven energy management for dynamic power optimisation and transition to renewable energy sources.

Cooling effciency/power and cooling: Enhancing cooling efficiency can be achieved through AI-powered optimisation algorithms, integrating renewable energy sources for cooling needs and adopting more efficient liquid cooling solutions for servers.

Security and compliance: Data centres can improve security by deploying AI and machine learning to detect threats in real time, implementing a zero-trust security model and conducting regular security audits to ensure compliance with regulations.

Scalability and flexibility: Data centres should implement modular and scalable infrastructure and use cloud-based solutions for flexible resource allocation.

Environmental impact/sustainability concerns: Addressing environmental impact involves incorporating sustainable design principles, aiming for green certifications such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or IGBC and continuously refining energy-efficient practices.

Operational complexity: Reducing operational complexity can be achieved by using automation tools to streamline operations and deploying integrated management systems for better oversight and control.

Latency and connectivity: Reducing latency and improving connectivity involves implementing edge computing solutions to process data closer to its source and investing in high speed network infrastructure for low-latency and high-bandwidth connectivity.

Regulatory and compliance issues: Managing regulatory and compliance issues requires establishing a dedicated compliance management team, developing strict policies and procedures and staying updated on regulatory changes.

Skilled workforce shortage: Data centres can invest in training and development programmes, implement strategic talent acquisition initiatives and collaborate with educational institutions to develop specialised programmes and internships.

What are your future growth strategies?

India is experiencing a surge in digital transformation, driven by increasing internet penetration, cloud computing and government initiatives for a digital economy. To tap into this market, we have several future growth strategies planned.

To tap into this market, we plan to expand our data centre footprint by establishing new centres in key locations, focusing on regions with high demand for digital services, leveraging government policies and key local partnerships. We aim to enhance infrastructure with advanced technologies, investing in AI, automation, sustainable design and high speed carrier-neutral connectivity.

Focusing on edge computing, we will develop edge data centres for low-latency services, support internet of things (IoT) and 5G, and collaborate with industries for real-time data processing. In addition, strengthening security and compliance is crucial. To this end, we will deploy AI for threat detection, develop data sovereignty solutions and maintain high standards through regular audits.

Further, we plan to invest in talent and skill development by creating training programmes, partnering with educational institutions and recruiting top talent. Finally, our goal will be to enhance customer experience, feedback-driven improvements and value-added services, which will build long-term relationships and drive business growth.

This comprehensive approach not only addresses current demands but also future proofs for growth, ensuring that we remain at the forefront of innovation and service excellence in the Indian data centre industry.