Accelerating the digital economy with advanced data centres

Adding momentum through enhanced computing and networking capabilities

“By leveraging Hong Kong’s prime position as a gateway to mainland China, abundant cross-border network resources and international submarine cables, we intend to build the IDC into a Belt and Road information hub, providing an information superhighway for the Belt and Road countries.” she explains.
 
The IDC currently hosts the Hong Kong international network management centre with two others in London (United Kingdom), and Los Angeles (America) and facilitates direct access to 130+ points-of-presence, or PoPs, around the world. This expansive network enables China Unicom to easily meet the distributed computing and networking needs of its globally-minded customers who are looking to scale worldwide. According to Ms Meng, China Unicom Global has data centre facilities in Singapore, Tokyo and Frankfurt.
 
 

Challenges facing data centres

Ms Meng identifies three main challenges for the industry in the next decade: first, the increased demand for computing power spurred by emerging innovations such as generative AI, 5G and 5.5G, and blockchain. With increased adoption of these technologies, “demand for computing power is gradually shifting from CPUs to GPUS, which require more space to utilise”.

The second challenge facing data centre providers is the gap in customer demand for electricity between peak and non-peak hours. In these situations, providers need to ensure a steady supply for their customers even as gaps between peak and non-peak demand widen.
 
“In the gaming industry, for example, this gap can be as high as 50 times, which places higher requirements on daily operations,” she says. “We need to ensure elasticity and scalability while maintaining an overall balance in terms of computing power and network capacity.”
 

“Data centres currently account for 3% of global electricity consumption and that share is expected to rise to 4% by 2030.”
– Shusen Meng, chairman and chief executive officer, China Unicom Global

 
To address these issues, the IDC was designed as a global computing network node that can provide customers with fast and reliable backup networks,” says Ms Meng. The centre also utilises high-density cabinets that can be scaled up or down in accordance with their customers’ specific business needs. Ms Meng explains that the centre’s modular architecture allows for more cabinets—and capacity—to be added as needed “for smooth expansion and elastic scaling”.

The third issue facing data centres today is the disconnect between increased connectivity demands and the urgency of green and low-carbon development.

“Data centres currently account for 3% of global electricity consumption and that share is expected to rise to 4% by 2030,” says Ms Meng. This in addition to contributing 1-2% of global CO₂ emissions.^{3 4} “Data centres are energy-intensive facilities and still struggle to reduce their energy consumption.”

 
In most data centres, the cooling system represents one of the most energy-intensive components, accounting for about 40% of its total power.⁵ Ms Meng explains that in order to mitigate this, the IDC explores “greener cooling” with chilled water refrigeration—which is 10 to 15% more efficient than air-cooling—as well as intelligent frequency conversion technologies.⁶ The centre also leverages emerging technologies such as AI and data analytics to optimise facility and energy usage.
 

Up to 15%
Increase in efficiency of cooling with chilled water refrigeration compared to air-cooling.

 
“To make data centres more energy-efficient, addressing only individual points with high energy consumption will no longer be sufficient,” she adds. “We need to turn to a more holistic approach and explore different overall designs.”

 
To strengthen the IDC’s operational security, China Unicom pioneered a novel model that combines a network (NoC, Network Operation Center) and security (SoC, Security Operation Center) operations into a “one-stop” centre for customers’ network security and information security needs. Ms Meng also notes that bringing these services into a single, convenient platform can “reduce the cost of network management” while making it more manageable for clients to monitor and manage their network.
 

“At present, we provide customers with security and data protection across five aspects—physical security, cyber security, operational security, data security and ecosystem security.”
– Shusen Meng, chairman and chief executive officer, China Unicom Global

 
When it comes to cybersecurity, all connected channels are equipped with various protection measures such as host security hardening and intrusion prevention that helped ward off more than 330,000 DDoS attacks in 2022, shares Ms Meng. The IDC also implements several other security tools for customer data and cultivates long-term strategic partnerships to ensure the reliability of their supply chain.

 
To ensure the IDC’s development isn’t achieved at a cost to the environment, Ms Meng says China Unicom is also exploring other areas to reduce its carbon footprint. Transitioning to more renewable energy sources is the next focus area for the company as well as a partnership with Hong Kong Science Park to develop a central seawater refrigeration system for more efficient centre cooling.
 

“We are strengthening our technological innovation capabilities and are joining hands with companies like Huawei to explore a future computing centre.”
– Shusen Meng, chairman and chief executive officer, China Unicom Global

“As we work to manage the rapidly growing amount of data in our world, we will need all these aspects to ensure more capability, better capability and technologies,” she says. “With these services, China Unicom will contribute to technological innovation and the development of a smart society.”