1
00:00:00,947 --> 00:00:02,427
Welcome to Let's Get Digital.

2
00:00:02,427 --> 00:00:07,197
I'm Keri Charles, your host, and so glad that you're here with us today.

3
00:00:07,197 --> 00:00:09,370
I have a very, very special guest.

4
00:00:09,370 --> 00:00:11,121
You're going to love this episode.

5
00:00:11,121 --> 00:00:16,902
So get a cup of coffee, sit back, and get ready to be inspired.

6
00:00:16,963 --> 00:00:18,703
I have with me today Chris Sharp.

7
00:00:18,703 --> 00:00:22,404
He is the chief technology officer for digital realty.

8
00:00:22,404 --> 00:00:24,430
Chris, thank you for joining me.

9
00:00:24,430 --> 00:00:25,352
Thanks for having me, appreciate it.

10
00:00:25,352 --> 00:00:26,325
We're looking forward to it.

11
00:00:26,325 --> 00:00:27,385
Yes, yes.

12
00:00:27,385 --> 00:00:31,805
So Chris, I always like to ask the guests about their journey.

13
00:00:31,805 --> 00:00:34,185
How did you get into this industry?

14
00:00:34,185 --> 00:00:36,785
Maybe a couple, maybe a cool story.

15
00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:40,502
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a technologist at heart, right?

16
00:00:40,502 --> 00:00:42,813
I absolutely love technology, you can see behind me.

17
00:00:42,813 --> 00:00:50,637
um It's what drove me, you know, not only to this industry in particular with digital
reality, but just overall infrastructure, right?

18
00:00:50,637 --> 00:00:57,961
So early career, starting at a network, evolving to security, and then seeing the true
frontier of data centers before they were cool.

19
00:00:57,961 --> 00:00:59,422
So absolutely.

20
00:00:59,813 --> 00:01:01,259
Oh, that's awesome.

21
00:01:01,259 --> 00:01:04,609
Yeah, and I know that you've been with the Digital Realty now.

22
00:01:04,609 --> 00:01:05,902
How long again?

23
00:01:05,902 --> 00:01:07,675
10 years, coming on 10 years.

24
00:01:07,675 --> 00:01:09,382
So, I'm not.

25
00:01:09,622 --> 00:01:10,705
digital reality to us.

26
00:01:10,705 --> 00:01:13,450
I'm sure the entire world knows who you are, but...

27
00:01:13,450 --> 00:01:14,460
Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

28
00:01:14,460 --> 00:01:16,911
Like I guess it's a couple of perspectives, right?

29
00:01:16,911 --> 00:01:24,454
And I'll kind of go a little bit, maybe deeper in, you know, helping, you know, form some
of the largest networks in the world where Quest.

30
00:01:24,454 --> 00:01:33,697
So I started at SP Southern Pacific railroad telecom building up Quest and then Quest, you
know, it was pretty interesting in what we were able to do with all of the optical

31
00:01:33,697 --> 00:01:38,098
interconnection building these massive, you know, networks before.

32
00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:47,616
people even realized how they're going to be utilized and then evolving into a couple of
other companies, one of which is bringing MCI out of bankruptcy and making sure they

33
00:01:47,616 --> 00:01:51,399
understood how that was going to be utilized and those assets.

34
00:01:51,399 --> 00:01:58,954
you know, what I saw early on is that networks are important, but how do you get more
relevance around the networking and internetworking environment?

35
00:01:58,954 --> 00:02:01,936
And so I built the managed security practice at MCI.

36
00:02:01,936 --> 00:02:07,212
And so I ran that and then sold MCI to ultimately Verizon and

37
00:02:07,212 --> 00:02:09,594
you just see these technological evolutions.

38
00:02:09,594 --> 00:02:18,700
And so in running that managed security practice, you really saw the inner workings of
broader value and interdependency on the network.

39
00:02:18,700 --> 00:02:27,476
And so then where I saw that evolving is that the networks were being a bit
disintermediated from the value of what the customers were trying to achieve.

40
00:02:27,476 --> 00:02:31,139
And that's what brought me to, before digital, Equinix.

41
00:02:31,139 --> 00:02:35,628
And so we saw the value and the step functions of networking, internetworking,

42
00:02:35,628 --> 00:02:40,541
And quite frankly, you see with data centers, a lot of the value is created with
interconnectivity.

43
00:02:40,541 --> 00:02:47,936
And so I wrote a thesis when I left Equinix almost 10 years ago in that you want a broader
wallet share, right?

44
00:02:47,936 --> 00:02:52,849
Comprehensive product portfolio, which you see it being written about all over in the
recent news.

45
00:02:52,849 --> 00:02:58,753
um You need to be able to solve a broader capacity block with power density.

46
00:02:58,753 --> 00:03:04,546
And so I wrote a thesis on, hey, a broader full scale capability with digital reality.

47
00:03:04,546 --> 00:03:07,478
being able to provide wholesale and co-location.

48
00:03:07,478 --> 00:03:11,792
So cab, cage, hundreds of megawatts, all heavily interconnected.

49
00:03:11,792 --> 00:03:23,031
So the networking still fits within that, Kerry, and that's some of the stuff that we see
these stepping stones of my career in how technology has driven value in solving more

50
00:03:23,031 --> 00:03:26,314
complex problems for our customers.

51
00:03:26,314 --> 00:03:29,987
And that's kind of the stair-step crescendo that I got to digital reality.

52
00:03:29,987 --> 00:03:34,572
And what makes digital reality a bit differently is not only

53
00:03:34,572 --> 00:03:41,304
the full scale product portfolio, but really what we're seeing in a global platform,
right?

54
00:03:41,304 --> 00:03:45,585
Where most companies come to us today, they want to design once, deploy many.

55
00:03:45,585 --> 00:03:52,787
So we have the ability to not only solve for larger problems around power blocks, but
density.

56
00:03:52,787 --> 00:03:59,949
And we can talk about AI and go into detail where density of the power in the data center
is a big differentiator for us at Digital, really.

57
00:03:59,949 --> 00:04:03,786
But then how do we have an open platform to interconnect

58
00:04:03,786 --> 00:04:14,166
all these critical destinations, be it cloud, be it AI, be it at the epicenter of solving
for some of our largest customer problems around, you know, how can I get faster

59
00:04:14,166 --> 00:04:21,624
interconnects of power and how can you have long-term durability of growth with working
with utility operators and then the enterprise.

60
00:04:21,624 --> 00:04:23,075
They don't want to buy a science project.

61
00:04:23,075 --> 00:04:24,166
They want to buy it out.

62
00:04:24,166 --> 00:04:28,520
So private AI is the other element that truly differentiates us at digital reality.

63
00:04:28,967 --> 00:04:30,378
Interesting, private AI.

64
00:04:30,378 --> 00:04:33,737
um I haven't heard that before.

65
00:04:33,737 --> 00:04:42,091
I have heard a lot about inference, and I wanted to ask you, what is the difference in
training versus inference workloads?

66
00:04:42,091 --> 00:04:44,802
And also, where does digital reality focus?

67
00:04:44,802 --> 00:04:45,823
Yeah, I love it.

68
00:04:45,823 --> 00:04:55,622
so many of our listeners today have probably like heard a ton about like training and
inference, but just to make sure everybody's with us is that training is the initial setup

69
00:04:55,622 --> 00:05:02,157
where you have a monumental amount of infrastructure trying to pull data sets together to
train these frontier models.

70
00:05:02,157 --> 00:05:03,999
There's few individuals doing that.

71
00:05:03,999 --> 00:05:07,382
There's a smaller user group that are absolutely dead set in doing that.

72
00:05:07,382 --> 00:05:08,923
We don't invest our capital there.

73
00:05:08,923 --> 00:05:12,428
We're really watching how AI is going to be consumed.

74
00:05:12,428 --> 00:05:15,500
And that's where in the most simplistic sense, it's called inference.

75
00:05:15,500 --> 00:05:20,103
so watching how inference is brought to market, that's where we come into play.

76
00:05:20,103 --> 00:05:30,000
And inference, what we're seeing as the complexity and the maturity of these models evolve
with like reasoning and some of these other capabilities, it has proximity to the center

77
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:31,571
center, city center.

78
00:05:31,571 --> 00:05:35,554
And so what we're doing is we apply our capital closer and closer to that city center.

79
00:05:35,554 --> 00:05:40,697
And that's where we're at the epicenter of allowing that inference to be utilized in

80
00:05:41,728 --> 00:05:44,469
interconnected to a broader AI ecosystem.

81
00:05:44,469 --> 00:05:46,970
And so it's not only about that inference.

82
00:05:46,970 --> 00:05:48,701
I'll go one step further.

83
00:05:48,741 --> 00:05:50,262
How do you monetize it?

84
00:05:50,262 --> 00:05:56,364
Because I think that's where a lot of people are starting to think about how is AI going
to truly be monetized and consumed?

85
00:05:56,364 --> 00:06:05,248
And that's where we work and understand the specific workloads for our customers and how
they can get access to the infrastructure and consume that.

86
00:06:05,248 --> 00:06:09,518
But that's where this crescendo of infrastructure, where as much as

87
00:06:09,518 --> 00:06:17,778
you know, we bring to market in a capacity model of training, it'll be 10, 10 X with what
we're going to need for inference.

88
00:06:17,778 --> 00:06:24,798
And so you have to really watch what is the durable workload that's going to be deployed
in the environment and how is that going to be interconnected?

89
00:06:24,798 --> 00:06:28,398
And so that's where we're really watching and looking at the market.

90
00:06:28,398 --> 00:06:35,222
And just for the highest reference point where we've been watching is generative AI, the
first true

91
00:06:35,222 --> 00:06:38,615
monetization to the enterprise is copilot with Microsoft.

92
00:06:38,615 --> 00:06:41,876
And so you can follow how that's been evolving for some time.

93
00:06:42,951 --> 00:06:50,042
You've been in the industry quite a while, so I really would like to get your perspective
on the evolution of the industry.

94
00:06:50,042 --> 00:06:57,053
uh first, my question is, what is the current and future state of colocation?

95
00:06:57,664 --> 00:06:58,194
Absolutely.

96
00:06:58,194 --> 00:07:00,736
um Colo is changing drastically, right?

97
00:07:00,736 --> 00:07:09,582
Where, you know, I always joke a little bit and I'll take a step back if it's all right,
Kerry, that if you learn a lot from what we did with cloud, right?

98
00:07:09,582 --> 00:07:18,028
Like, so one of the things that really, you know, was a formidable step in my career early
on at Equinix was, hey, is cloud friend or foe?

99
00:07:18,028 --> 00:07:18,258
Right?

100
00:07:18,258 --> 00:07:19,819
Like we were all being asked that.

101
00:07:19,819 --> 00:07:20,984
And so we were a...

102
00:07:20,984 --> 00:07:27,058
co-location only provider and so many of our investors were like, my gosh, what is going
to happen with the company?

103
00:07:27,058 --> 00:07:31,682
And so I was, I had the opportunity to build a team called the cloud acceleration team.

104
00:07:31,682 --> 00:07:42,479
And jokingly, we called it the cat team, but that cat team, what we did is understood the
fundamentals of how that technological evolution was going to impact the market.

105
00:07:42,479 --> 00:07:45,712
And what we were able to do is private consumption of cloud.

106
00:07:45,712 --> 00:07:47,473
Like don't overthink it.

107
00:07:47,473 --> 00:07:48,614
That was hybrid, right?

108
00:07:48,614 --> 00:07:49,304
Where you have

109
00:07:49,304 --> 00:07:54,136
private environment to a public cloud and removing the complexity from that
interconnectivity.

110
00:07:54,136 --> 00:07:55,697
We built the cloud exchange.

111
00:07:55,697 --> 00:07:57,818
That was a great formidable model, right?

112
00:07:57,818 --> 00:08:02,840
That changed the way we viewed co-location at that time to the core of your question.

113
00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:04,400
AI is very similar.

114
00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:09,442
In AI, this wave is bigger and faster than anything we've ever seen.

115
00:08:09,442 --> 00:08:18,400
Like the growth trajectory, if you look at what we saw with cloud, which was tremendous
growth in the industry, it's nothing compared to what we see with AI.

116
00:08:18,444 --> 00:08:27,848
And so with the way that artificial intelligence is changing co-location, you need to
think about not only large capacity blocks, but the densification.

117
00:08:27,848 --> 00:08:34,981
So what we're seeing in the changing of co-location is that you have to be able to ideate
with your customers.

118
00:08:34,981 --> 00:08:45,565
And I referenced earlier, Kerry, private AI is where lot of our customers, our enterprise
customers have aspirations, is that all of artificial intelligence starts with your data.

119
00:08:45,565 --> 00:08:48,258
And so I'd invite everybody to go read about data gravity.

120
00:08:48,258 --> 00:08:58,384
We have some papers on our website, very simple, market texture kind of concept where you
want to really understand where your data is being generated and then where you can store

121
00:08:58,384 --> 00:09:01,646
your data efficiently and then you want to act off that data.

122
00:09:01,646 --> 00:09:07,949
so colocation, it's all about data and now with AI, it's about bringing algorithms to that
data.

123
00:09:07,949 --> 00:09:16,280
And so that's where we're at the epicenter now is can you support and with this
accelerated compute, be it Nvidia, we have great partnership with Nvidia.

124
00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:26,073
Can you support that hotspot and bring in that accelerated DGX pod like we've done with
Gephian and a lot of our other customers, bringing that infrastructure closer to their

125
00:09:26,073 --> 00:09:33,115
data where you can action off of that quicker and it's not a science project because it
gets very complicated very quickly.

126
00:09:33,115 --> 00:09:42,818
So you as a co-location provider and we, the amount of heritage we have in engineering at
this company is phenomenal in that.

127
00:09:42,818 --> 00:09:53,282
you really are changing the landscape of how colocation is viewed where larger capacity
blocks being able to densify and bring that to existing infrastructure where they can act

128
00:09:53,282 --> 00:09:57,824
off of not only their own data, but the data oceans that are represented with the public
clouds.

129
00:09:57,824 --> 00:10:06,658
That's what's changing colocation today is you need to not only look at the chips that are
being delivered today, like one piece that you may like to know, Carrie, is like from

130
00:10:06,658 --> 00:10:12,822
Hopper to Blackwell, that one simple step function with which is roughly 12, 12 months.

131
00:10:12,822 --> 00:10:17,826
it's 30 times more efficient in doing inference, 30 times.

132
00:10:17,826 --> 00:10:21,389
But it requires liquid, it requires a different type of design.

133
00:10:21,389 --> 00:10:25,713
So co-location providers such as ourselves, you have to bring liquid to the floor.

134
00:10:25,713 --> 00:10:28,024
We're highly, highly built for that.

135
00:10:28,024 --> 00:10:32,378
Our asset class coming from scale allows us to do that modularly.

136
00:10:32,378 --> 00:10:36,081
But that's what's changing the landscape for co-location today, Kerry.

137
00:10:36,740 --> 00:10:41,680
Why are not all data centers created equal?

138
00:10:41,928 --> 00:10:42,308
love it.

139
00:10:42,308 --> 00:10:42,718
Love it.

140
00:10:42,718 --> 00:10:44,969
Well, it depends on your heritage, right?

141
00:10:44,969 --> 00:10:51,402
Like I spoke earlier, we spent a lot of time like early in my career and a lot of people
laugh at this if they know me.

142
00:10:51,402 --> 00:10:58,301
Like when I left Equinix and I came over here 10 years ago, people are like, why is a
technologist working at a real estate company?

143
00:10:58,301 --> 00:11:01,946
mean, our largest investor first week stepped me down and she's awesome.

144
00:11:01,946 --> 00:11:03,027
I absolutely love her.

145
00:11:03,027 --> 00:11:05,093
She was like, what are you doing with your career?

146
00:11:05,093 --> 00:11:07,799
And I'm like, you know, like, like bear with me.

147
00:11:07,799 --> 00:11:10,914
Watch it will change over time.

148
00:11:10,926 --> 00:11:22,526
And we were joking early days on how that was going to come to market in that, you know,
she was also the one that, you know, referenced that in 2017, I put a slide up, Hey, AI

149
00:11:22,526 --> 00:11:25,406
and digital really are going to be the home of AI, right?

150
00:11:25,406 --> 00:11:33,666
Because of the capacity blocks, the master planning that we do, and because of the
modularity of our designs, which is the core of your question, Carrie, that's what

151
00:11:33,666 --> 00:11:35,866
differentiates data center operators.

152
00:11:35,866 --> 00:11:37,902
And that if you anticipated

153
00:11:37,902 --> 00:11:47,282
the fact that the infrastructure is going to ideate rather quickly, requiring a different
type of electrical distribution, requiring a different type of cooling, and then

154
00:11:47,282 --> 00:11:51,262
ultimately requiring a different type of interconnectivity in an open platform.

155
00:11:51,542 --> 00:12:02,522
Those three elements truly differentiate different data center operators, where you can't
bring that electrical distribution expertise, you can't bring that type of cooling, where

156
00:12:02,522 --> 00:12:06,552
it then really stifles the customer's ability

157
00:12:06,552 --> 00:12:09,777
quite frankly, get the benefit out of some of the new technology coming to market.

158
00:12:09,777 --> 00:12:13,434
And that's why I reference the step functioning capabilities.

159
00:12:13,434 --> 00:12:21,056
That's what's really coming down to what really differentiates certain colo environments
from others.

160
00:12:22,522 --> 00:12:24,667
What does the term, Braggowats mean?

161
00:12:24,667 --> 00:12:28,290
I remember, dude, said that once and I thought, what is that?

162
00:12:28,290 --> 00:12:28,700
Yeah.

163
00:12:28,700 --> 00:12:31,272
So like Andy and I joke, our CEO.

164
00:12:31,272 --> 00:12:31,612
yeah.

165
00:12:31,612 --> 00:12:33,543
So there's a lot of noise, right?

166
00:12:33,543 --> 00:12:33,873
Karen.

167
00:12:33,873 --> 00:12:38,806
I think that's probably why a lot of people are listening to us today is like, what's
going on in the landscape.

168
00:12:38,806 --> 00:12:39,236
my gosh.

169
00:12:39,236 --> 00:12:46,860
It's just, you know, with AI and we have access to information and information's wildly
available, but not all information is correct.

170
00:12:46,860 --> 00:12:54,224
There's a lot of hallucinations in the information, but what we, what we really talking
about with Braggawatts is you read every day.

171
00:12:54,224 --> 00:12:55,245
Here's a gigawatt there.

172
00:12:55,245 --> 00:12:56,175
There's a gigawatt there.

173
00:12:56,175 --> 00:12:57,946
Here's a hundred megawatts there.

174
00:12:58,316 --> 00:13:03,749
The fundamentals of what it takes to bring this infrastructure to market is not easy,
right?

175
00:13:03,749 --> 00:13:12,154
The entitlements, the utility interconnects, the substations, like we operate in pretty
much every major Metro on earth.

176
00:13:12,154 --> 00:13:16,476
And so that heritage and expertise allows us to really execute on those programs.

177
00:13:16,476 --> 00:13:19,378
What Braggowats is about, don't leave everything you read.

178
00:13:19,378 --> 00:13:26,572
There's going to be a lot of, you know, fully, you you read the press release and my gosh,
there's going to be a gigawatt delivered in this market.

179
00:13:26,572 --> 00:13:27,863
it's not gonna come to fruition.

180
00:13:27,863 --> 00:13:33,866
And that's where we've worked and we have the privilege of supporting some of the largest
customers on earth.

181
00:13:33,866 --> 00:13:44,712
um And so really showing them not only what we deliver for them today, but that runway
where they want three, four, five X and growing in that market, that's what we're really

182
00:13:44,712 --> 00:13:45,272
focused on.

183
00:13:45,272 --> 00:13:49,854
And so the Braggowats is just don't read everything you, or don't believe everything you
read.

184
00:13:49,945 --> 00:13:53,447
I think that's a good lesson for all of life, right?

185
00:13:55,408 --> 00:14:01,372
So uh let's talk about the question that's uh really on everyone's mind in the data center
world.

186
00:14:01,372 --> 00:14:12,078
uh With data centers already straining grid capacity due to high power demands, and also
what you just said with AI, really accelerating that demand even more.

187
00:14:12,078 --> 00:14:14,999
How can the industry adapt?

188
00:14:14,999 --> 00:14:18,345
And are there practical solutions?

189
00:14:18,345 --> 00:14:22,062
that can really balance that growth with the grid resilience.

190
00:14:22,062 --> 00:14:22,082
100%.

191
00:14:22,082 --> 00:14:27,808
Yeah, power is a critical ingredient for our collective success.

192
00:14:27,808 --> 00:14:30,280
And so it takes a village, right?

193
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:39,088
Like I speak and I get the opportunity to spend a lot of time with our utility partners
where it's just for the most simplistic sake.

194
00:14:39,088 --> 00:14:41,400
It's not only generation, it's distribution, right?

195
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:42,441
We're the grid.

196
00:14:42,441 --> 00:14:47,796
And we're always ensuring that we're collectively thinking about the problem.

197
00:14:47,808 --> 00:14:55,582
And because like when I reference Braga Watts, there's a lot of demand that quite frankly,
the utility operators are like, that doesn't make sense, right?

198
00:14:55,582 --> 00:15:02,096
Where they don't believe that the actual utilization will be near the levels that people
are requesting.

199
00:15:02,096 --> 00:15:10,320
And so that can create a huge, you know, bubble in the industry, if you will, that if
somebody comes in and they say they're going to take down a certain amount of power, the

200
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:11,431
utility builds it.

201
00:15:11,431 --> 00:15:13,692
That's a bad outcome if it doesn't get utilized.

202
00:15:13,692 --> 00:15:17,602
And what really we look at is that I referenced it earlier.

203
00:15:17,602 --> 00:15:28,949
long-term durable workloads that we have, you know, 10 plus year contracts with our
customers today, they really, and they're some of the top credit worthy customers on

204
00:15:28,949 --> 00:15:34,802
earth, we represent a different type of demand model to the utility where they get
comfortable with that.

205
00:15:34,802 --> 00:15:44,928
And so that's where it takes a uh understanding of the existing kind of landscape of
utility operators, but then you have to start thinking about Horizon too.

206
00:15:45,078 --> 00:15:51,742
And so Horizon 2 is where we start to work with utility operators and some new entrants
into the market around nuclear.

207
00:15:51,742 --> 00:15:59,722
I often get asked, and I've been talking about this for some time now, many years, and
that a reporter, think it was from the BBC, is like, what do I not know about data

208
00:15:59,722 --> 00:15:59,882
centers?

209
00:15:59,882 --> 00:16:01,422
What's going to blow my mind?

210
00:16:01,422 --> 00:16:07,021
I'm like, well, we're going to have to use nuclear to meet the demand requirements of the
power associated with that.

211
00:16:07,021 --> 00:16:10,292
And so there's traditional types of nuclear in large format.

212
00:16:10,292 --> 00:16:13,004
There's small modular reactors in smaller format.

213
00:16:13,004 --> 00:16:14,955
I'm pretty excited about SMRs.

214
00:16:14,955 --> 00:16:22,320
You can tuck them in the grid to overcome the distribution challenges where right now
there's a lot of generation, but it's an islands.

215
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,642
It's very hard to get to certain locations because we don't support training.

216
00:16:26,642 --> 00:16:28,643
We can't move the workload out there.

217
00:16:28,643 --> 00:16:36,448
You really want to have the actual workload closer to the city center, closer to that
ecosystem so that that infrastructure gets more value.

218
00:16:36,448 --> 00:16:39,938
So we're always looking at and working with the utility operators and

219
00:16:39,938 --> 00:16:47,362
You know, we build in some of the most storied markets on earth like Ashburn, Virginia,
where we work with our partners at Dominion.

220
00:16:47,362 --> 00:16:52,754
So just watching how we can not only meet that demand, but they'd be intelligent.

221
00:16:52,754 --> 00:17:00,008
And I think that's a core part of what you're asking, Kerry, is we have to be more
transparent in what the workload heuristics are going to do.

222
00:17:00,008 --> 00:17:04,928
Like, how is it going to operate over some period of time, really signaling to the

223
00:17:04,928 --> 00:17:16,471
utility operators in building a partnership where it's not two silos that are not directly
interconnected and directly communicating to one another so that we can like collectively

224
00:17:16,471 --> 00:17:21,963
solve the challenges of some of the peak loads that are existing within this grid.

225
00:17:21,963 --> 00:17:25,604
And my last piece is just being a good partner, right?

226
00:17:25,604 --> 00:17:29,025
Not only being a good partner to the utility operator, but the Metro, right?

227
00:17:29,025 --> 00:17:33,666
So when we operate in a market and a lot of the markets we're investigating peak shaving.

228
00:17:33,666 --> 00:17:37,068
So as you can imagine with anything, right, you have to build for the peak.

229
00:17:37,068 --> 00:17:47,184
And so with some of the utilization, with some of the heat waves we see today, one of the
things we do, and it's a little misunderstood fact that with the roughly three gigawatts

230
00:17:47,184 --> 00:17:51,766
we operate today in IT load, there's three gigawatts of diesel generation behind that.

231
00:17:51,766 --> 00:18:01,676
And so we can do a lot of peak shaving where in critical moments when the demand spikes,
we can shave off some of those peaks, which helps everybody, not only utility.

232
00:18:01,676 --> 00:18:05,484
It avoids brownouts, avoids a lot of stress within that overall market.

233
00:18:05,484 --> 00:18:10,122
And so we're pretty excited about the work we're doing with a lot of our partners to bring
that to light.

234
00:18:10,635 --> 00:18:12,404
What about renewable energy?

235
00:18:12,404 --> 00:18:15,296
Is that an option at scale?

236
00:18:15,296 --> 00:18:15,826
Absolutely.

237
00:18:15,826 --> 00:18:19,148
So we operate a gig and a half of solar and wind today.

238
00:18:19,148 --> 00:18:20,789
I don't think people realize that.

239
00:18:20,789 --> 00:18:26,973
um The quantums of power required, I won't whistle past the core of I think your question.

240
00:18:26,973 --> 00:18:33,196
You can't run, you know, a gigawatt directly data center off of wind and solar, but it's a
good mix.

241
00:18:33,196 --> 00:18:41,721
And we have to use all tools in our tool belt in that solar wind make a lot of sense,
geothermal, certain markets that make sense.

242
00:18:41,721 --> 00:18:43,682
So we're looking at everything, but

243
00:18:43,746 --> 00:18:51,389
You know, we have very discreet ESG goals that we're going to hit and those targets our
customers do as well with some of the large hyperscalers.

244
00:18:51,389 --> 00:18:57,562
That's extremely important that we're going to, you know, maintain that level of goal and
be able to execute against that.

245
00:18:57,562 --> 00:19:03,086
But it's dependent upon the valley we're in now with the demand increasing so quickly.

246
00:19:03,086 --> 00:19:08,227
I think a lot of us are looking at all options of power generation and being able to solve
for it.

247
00:19:08,227 --> 00:19:11,418
But I do still believe and see that a lot of these

248
00:19:11,438 --> 00:19:14,690
traditional types of solar and wind and other environments.

249
00:19:14,690 --> 00:19:20,154
And I mean, I don't know, as a technologist, I would be remiss not to talk about
batteries, right?

250
00:19:20,154 --> 00:19:30,571
The advent of batteries and the ability for us to produce them exponentially cheaper and
tucking them in the grid is very exciting to me where the battery element of that will

251
00:19:30,571 --> 00:19:36,254
also start to help us, you know, be able to utilize a lot of this green energy, if you
will, throughout our portfolio.

252
00:19:37,205 --> 00:19:42,245
So I'm really interested to hear your thoughts about the future, even more thoughts about
the future.

253
00:19:42,245 --> 00:19:54,865
I know you spoke just a few minutes ago about what I would say maybe is a prophetic
prediction that digital reality would be the home of AI.

254
00:19:54,865 --> 00:20:01,485
And so I'd like to talk about just your thoughts on what's ahead of us.

255
00:20:03,245 --> 00:20:06,015
Obviously, there's just a lot.

256
00:20:06,015 --> 00:20:08,177
that's disrupting, right?

257
00:20:08,177 --> 00:20:11,870
Not just in this industry, but the entire world.

258
00:20:12,191 --> 00:20:13,412
so what are your thoughts?

259
00:20:13,412 --> 00:20:14,459
I mean, what's up ahead?

260
00:20:14,459 --> 00:20:15,144
Where are we going?

261
00:20:15,144 --> 00:20:16,355
What are new technologies?

262
00:20:16,355 --> 00:20:18,614
Let's get into the future a bit.

263
00:20:18,614 --> 00:20:19,184
No, I love it.

264
00:20:19,184 --> 00:20:19,654
I love it.

265
00:20:19,654 --> 00:20:22,586
um there's a lot to unpack there, right?

266
00:20:22,586 --> 00:20:25,417
You can go in many directions, but I'll stay at the highest level.

267
00:20:25,417 --> 00:20:31,889
with, with AI, you can view it as a disruptor and it is, it is going to be disruptive
across every vertical, right?

268
00:20:31,889 --> 00:20:38,582
Like, like it depends upon how exposed, um, our audiences to AI, they're, it's a bubble.

269
00:20:38,582 --> 00:20:39,713
It's kind of noise.

270
00:20:39,713 --> 00:20:42,964
It's not really like it is pervasive.

271
00:20:42,964 --> 00:20:44,205
It is disruptive.

272
00:20:44,205 --> 00:20:48,088
And so I always try to like impress upon everybody.

273
00:20:48,088 --> 00:20:49,679
Get on the right side of disruption.

274
00:20:49,679 --> 00:20:54,901
Lean in, not only use the tools, because we're still very, very, very early innings.

275
00:20:54,901 --> 00:20:55,801
Very early, right?

276
00:20:55,801 --> 00:21:01,123
Where it's augmenting our emails, it's kind of doing some adjacent tasks.

277
00:21:01,163 --> 00:21:06,305
Very excited about agentic AI, where you can have agents act on your behalf.

278
00:21:06,626 --> 00:21:17,696
Also very excited about how reasoning is working, where you can have multiple models look
back at an individual prompt or question, just to ensure that it's not hallucinating.

279
00:21:17,696 --> 00:21:24,448
It's those types of things that I'm super excited about which will require an exponential
amount of more of infrastructure.

280
00:21:24,448 --> 00:21:34,702
And so very excited about the positive sides of what we see artificial intelligence doing
for our lives where we have a project that we were able to work on and very excited about

281
00:21:34,702 --> 00:21:35,572
called Gephian.

282
00:21:35,572 --> 00:21:37,432
It's in the Nordics.

283
00:21:37,432 --> 00:21:39,973
It's with the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

284
00:21:39,973 --> 00:21:42,814
It's the largest DGX pod in all of Europe.

285
00:21:42,862 --> 00:21:46,385
monumental amount of pharmaceutical research being done there.

286
00:21:46,385 --> 00:21:57,554
And so that'll directly impact our lives, being able to bring, you know, different types
of medicines and different types of capabilities in the pharmaceutical arena, but just how

287
00:21:57,554 --> 00:22:00,596
AI is going to benefit, you know, society.

288
00:22:00,622 --> 00:22:02,178
I would invite everybody to dig in.

289
00:22:02,178 --> 00:22:04,900
So it's going to be transformative.

290
00:22:04,900 --> 00:22:11,805
And I would say it's going to change not only the shape and tenor of our daily lives from
a professional perspective, but our personal lives.

291
00:22:11,805 --> 00:22:12,686
And so

292
00:22:12,686 --> 00:22:17,566
How I see that requiring infrastructure, digital infrastructure, more networking.

293
00:22:17,966 --> 00:22:24,926
One of the things I'll explain to you is seven months ago, I wrote a blog around private
AI exchange.

294
00:22:24,926 --> 00:22:26,486
I invite everybody to go read about it.

295
00:22:26,486 --> 00:22:28,106
Would love welcome feedback.

296
00:22:28,106 --> 00:22:32,946
But what we really representing at that time is don't overthink it.

297
00:22:32,946 --> 00:22:40,832
Just like the way that cloud evolved and all the intricacies of cloud and requiring an
exchange and doing it privately and secure.

298
00:22:40,832 --> 00:22:43,064
Same thing is going to have to happen with AI.

299
00:22:43,064 --> 00:22:49,048
And so you're going to see more monumental amount of bandwidth required, where it's going
to be an optical interconnect.

300
00:22:49,048 --> 00:22:58,038
It's all going to be about throughput, because the amount of data required for a Gentic
and some of these other AI capabilities that we're looking at two, three years out, it's

301
00:22:58,038 --> 00:23:00,526
going to require a monumental amount of connectivity.

302
00:23:00,526 --> 00:23:02,249
It's going to require a lot of power.

303
00:23:02,249 --> 00:23:04,358
You want to do that power efficiently.

304
00:23:04,358 --> 00:23:09,722
I'm very excited about how we use AI in our own infrastructure to operate more
efficiently.

305
00:23:09,868 --> 00:23:16,193
watching, you know, I don't know, I always say like, don't get too inundated by it.

306
00:23:16,193 --> 00:23:24,003
It's still a lot of basics where we use AI to watch our pumps, to watch our filters, just
to monitor the effectiveness of our infrastructure.

307
00:23:24,003 --> 00:23:27,992
And so we've been able to save a tremendous amount of water, a tremendous amount of power.

308
00:23:27,992 --> 00:23:32,185
How we see this world evolving to support AI is pretty exciting to me.

309
00:23:32,185 --> 00:23:36,590
And just the way that, you know, it's going to impact our personal lives as well where

310
00:23:36,590 --> 00:23:42,730
I use a lot of AI just to help me kind of track my day, track our family and like what
we're going to be planning.

311
00:23:42,730 --> 00:23:48,550
I mean, I'm sure a lot of our audience today is utilizing it where, hey, I'm thinking
about traveling to this market.

312
00:23:48,830 --> 00:23:58,950
The ability to tailor make an outcome for the broader, you know, professional personal
lives with AI, it's monumental, right?

313
00:23:58,950 --> 00:24:06,390
Like some of the, some of the models that I've been exposed to because of our customer
base and some of the hardware that I've been exposed to.

314
00:24:06,942 --> 00:24:08,764
It's transformative, right?

315
00:24:08,764 --> 00:24:11,947
And so again, it can be used for good and bad.

316
00:24:11,947 --> 00:24:18,762
I spent a lot of time trying to be an optimist and get on the right side of it and making
sure that it's utilized for good, but you can't hide from it.

317
00:24:18,762 --> 00:24:28,380
So I tell everybody to lean in and be sure that you understand what you're buying into and
just bringing it back to co-location, the core of a lot of our conversation today.

318
00:24:28,380 --> 00:24:32,844
Buyer beware and uh start to engage early.

319
00:24:32,844 --> 00:24:34,415
It takes a very long time, right?

320
00:24:34,415 --> 00:24:35,202
Like so...

321
00:24:35,202 --> 00:24:37,404
The supply demand imbalance is monumental.

322
00:24:37,404 --> 00:24:39,926
I don't see that changing anytime soon.

323
00:24:39,926 --> 00:24:47,082
So if you're looking to bring something to market, you want to start to plan early, not
only to get allocation of power, but then some of the technologies behind it.

324
00:24:47,082 --> 00:24:51,166
So the chips, the cooling technology is very excited about that.

325
00:24:51,166 --> 00:24:52,557
We've pre procured.

326
00:24:52,557 --> 00:25:02,015
We have a very large vendor manage inventory so we can help a lot of our customers
overcome some of those challenges like our partners with WWT and other suppliers where we

327
00:25:02,015 --> 00:25:03,186
can help you.

328
00:25:03,636 --> 00:25:06,007
not by a science project, but by an outcome.

329
00:25:06,007 --> 00:25:08,048
And that's what most customers are looking for today.

330
00:25:08,048 --> 00:25:17,284
So, pretty excited about how a lot of this is gonna evolve over time and quite frankly,
what it's gonna be able to produce for our lives and the longevity of it, because it's not

331
00:25:17,284 --> 00:25:18,364
gonna go away.

332
00:25:19,081 --> 00:25:21,822
Boy, I love your energy, I love your positivity.

333
00:25:21,822 --> 00:25:23,562
is ah great.

334
00:25:23,562 --> 00:25:25,333
One last question.

335
00:25:25,333 --> 00:25:40,878
this is, I guess my question is, looking at the young technologists like you, like you
were, and all the young people today that are looking forward to all of this, and they're

336
00:25:40,878 --> 00:25:44,229
graduating college, maybe they're working in the industry right now.

337
00:25:44,229 --> 00:25:56,329
and they're thinking, where do I need to be to really uh take advantage of this shift and
not only that, make sure that my job is not disrupted and that I can really have a place

338
00:25:56,329 --> 00:25:59,261
in this future, what advice would you give to them?

339
00:25:59,726 --> 00:26:03,829
You know, knowledge is becoming free.

340
00:26:03,829 --> 00:26:05,270
I always start there.

341
00:26:05,270 --> 00:26:08,712
so, like having knowledge isn't enough anymore.

342
00:26:08,712 --> 00:26:15,257
And so, you know, one of the weirdest things that I'll try to impress upon everybody is
having interpersonal skills and being creative.

343
00:26:15,257 --> 00:26:25,204
Like creativity is such uh a gift and it's a hone talent on how can you work with
individuals and help them be better and help them be successful.

344
00:26:25,204 --> 00:26:28,878
I think that's where I would spend a lot of my time is on the interpersonal skills.

345
00:26:28,878 --> 00:26:37,898
because a lot of the tools are gonna afford you the knowledge and a lot of people will
have that knowledge, but then how it's applied and when it's applied and the creativity of

346
00:26:37,898 --> 00:26:41,658
that application, that's where I would impress a lot of people to go slow.

347
00:26:41,658 --> 00:26:42,858
It can be daunting.

348
00:26:42,858 --> 00:26:48,998
Like I run into more senior level executives at Fortune 500 companies where like, I'm
done.

349
00:26:48,998 --> 00:26:50,518
Like I don't know where this is going.

350
00:26:50,518 --> 00:26:55,052
Like, oh my gosh, I got this tool, I got that tool, I hear this and I utilize this thing
and.

351
00:26:55,052 --> 00:26:58,533
Like it didn't really make sense and it was like, whatever, my email was rewritten.

352
00:26:58,533 --> 00:26:59,023
So what?

353
00:26:59,023 --> 00:27:01,714
And I'm like, okay, you're thinking about it in the wrong frame.

354
00:27:01,714 --> 00:27:08,936
So really thinking through like stair stepping through how it's going to be impactful, how
you can position yourself.

355
00:27:08,936 --> 00:27:18,358
You know, we joked about it where, you know, back in 2017, when I was saying we predicted
that we were going to be the home of AI, most people didn't want to work at data centers.

356
00:27:18,358 --> 00:27:24,194
The reason why I was doing a lot of that is trying to stimulate an outside intellectual
capital of humans.

357
00:27:24,194 --> 00:27:25,505
to come into the industry, right?

358
00:27:25,505 --> 00:27:32,469
And so how that's gonna evolve, and now it's kinda cool to be inside of data centers, data
centers are not going away.

359
00:27:32,469 --> 00:27:37,001
It's a critical component of our professional and our personal lives that will continue to
be so.

360
00:27:37,001 --> 00:27:43,655
So just being knowledgeable about the digital infrastructure, how that's gonna evolve over
time, and your interpersonal skills.

361
00:27:43,655 --> 00:27:52,312
We all have to work with humans, good and bad, and so leveraging that tool set and honing
your skills to be able to be creative with your knowledge.

362
00:27:52,312 --> 00:27:55,860
That's what it's all about and that's what it will take to be successful going forward.

363
00:27:56,167 --> 00:27:58,040
So, so insightful.

364
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:03,586
Chris, how can we learn more about digital realty and possibly the open jobs available?

365
00:28:03,586 --> 00:28:04,516
Yeah, no, absolutely.

366
00:28:04,516 --> 00:28:05,967
So our website is always good.

367
00:28:05,967 --> 00:28:09,148
um We post a tremendous amount of jobs on LinkedIn.

368
00:28:09,148 --> 00:28:14,609
um Cindy Feenemann, our head of HR, um should be frustrated if I didn't reference that as
well.

369
00:28:14,609 --> 00:28:17,230
But I run an ongoing blog post.

370
00:28:17,230 --> 00:28:18,440
Read some of the older ones.

371
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:22,362
Like there's a full series of, know, is your data center going to be obsolete?

372
00:28:22,362 --> 00:28:30,338
I go into more details around electric distribution, cooling, how you can retrofit things,
because it's not only about the three gigawatts we have, it's the

373
00:28:30,338 --> 00:28:39,184
you know roughly 4 gigawatts we have coming online in the future so there's a lot of
dynamics there so go read those blog posts and be careful there's a lot of noise out there

374
00:28:39,184 --> 00:28:44,042
with the braggawatt so you wanna dig into the details so that you can understand what's
real

375
00:28:44,613 --> 00:28:48,317
I encourage everyone to follow Chris Sharp on LinkedIn.

376
00:28:48,317 --> 00:28:52,752
I think I started following you a few months ago and I've become smarter and I agree.

377
00:28:52,752 --> 00:28:54,514
Love your blog posts, love your posts.

378
00:28:54,514 --> 00:28:56,476
Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show.

379
00:28:56,476 --> 00:28:58,828
I've had a great time.

380
00:28:58,828 --> 00:28:59,320
I appreciate it.

381
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:00,244
Thank you for the kind words.

382
00:29:00,244 --> 00:29:01,185
Thank you.

383
00:29:02,233 --> 00:29:03,154
Take care.

384
00:29:05,715 --> 00:29:07,417
Okay, we're gonna stop.