The Ultimate Guide to Data centers
A curated Kiwi edition of IndustrialDay news, analysis, interviews, reviews, job moves, and related resources for Data centers (DC).
What to know about Data centers
Data centers serve as the backbone of our digital world, housing the critical infrastructure that powers the internet, cloud services, and enterprise IT operations. They are pivotal in managing the ever-expanding volume of data generated across industries and consumers globally.
This collection of stories highlights the dynamic growth and technological innovations shaping data centers today. From expansions into emerging markets like Indonesia and Malaysia to the creation of AI-ready and sustainable campuses, data centers are evolving to meet increasing demands for performance, scalability, and environmental responsibility.
Readers will find insights into advancements in cooling technologies, energy efficiency, and the incorporation of renewable energy sources aimed at reducing carbon footprints. Moreover, the integration of AI and edge computing within data center architectures demonstrates how the industry adapts to modern workloads and latency-sensitive applications.
Security remains a critical theme, as data centers bolster defenses against cyber threats while ensuring compliance with emerging regulations. Partnerships between global tech firms and local providers underscore the importance of connectivity, interconnection, and hybrid cloud strategies in today’s data ecosystem.
Exploring these stories offers a comprehensive view of how data centers underpin digital transformation, drive innovation, and face challenges in sustainability, infrastructure expansion, and operational excellence.
Kiwi Data centers News
Regional stories with direct local relevance
McKay completes electrical works on Tauhei solar farm
The 150 MW AC project adds to New Zealand's utility-scale solar build-out, with McKay delivering the full electrical package at Tauhei Solar Farm.
Māori urged to help power Aotearoa's energy shift
Iwi and hapū face a narrow window to secure jobs, land rights and returns as New Zealand's power system shifts away from fossil fuels.
Sovereignty by design: Building New Zealand's digital resilience
A mix of local and global systems could shield New Zealand services from cyberattacks and natural hazards while preserving control over critical data.
Schneider Electric: Electrifying everything else, flexibly
New Zealand businesses and homes could ease grid strain and cut fossil fuel reliance by shifting to microgrids, batteries and solar, says Schneider Electric NZ.
National unveils nine-point energy plan to tackle power bills
Households could get cheaper, more flexible power deals as National proposes new rules to boost competition and rein in network charges.
Lodestone Energy launches NZD $100m IPO for solar growth
The deal could end the NZX's five-year IPO drought and fund expansion of a solar generator aiming to supply more homes and businesses.
Analyst Insights
Research and market analysis connected to Data centers
Infrastructure Flexibility Becomes A Competitive Advantage As Uncertainty Mounts
Check Point launches AI-scale security orchestrator 200
Sovereignty by design: Building New Zealand's digital resilience
Kingston holds global DRAM module lead with 62% share
Gartner forecasts AI strain on services, costs & jobs
Featured News
Data sovereignty is a strategic imperative in the AI era
AI is pushing boards to weigh local control against cloud convenience, with 80% of respondents saying sovereignty matters more in vendor selection.
Schneider Electric: Electrifying everything else, flexibly
New Zealand businesses and homes could ease grid strain and cut fossil fuel reliance by shifting to microgrids, batteries and solar, says Schneider Electric NZ.
AI workloads & modern facilities driving Honeywell growth
Data centre operators are under pressure to supply their own electricity, opening the door for Honeywell to add on-site power and utilities.
Exclusive: Castrol puts data centre experts behind CORE
The shift towards AI-ready liquid cooling is prompting Castrol to target new-build data centres and costly retrofits across Asia Pacific.
Interview: Cloudera says AI agents reshape zero trust
Enterprises must update identity controls as software agents generate more requests and need tightly time-limited access to sensitive systems.
VAST Data targets AI data sovereignty with DataEnclave
Enterprises and governments could run AI on sensitive data without exposing it, as the technology targets sovereignty rules across APAC.
ABB: Renewables usage puts NZ in data centre sweet spot
Renewables are leaving New Zealand well placed for data centres, but ABB says grid upgrades and smarter use of existing assets are needed.
Interview: Cloudera bets on hybrid AI growth in JAPAC
Banks and large enterprises in Asia-Pacific are rethinking cloud-first AI plans as costs, sovereignty and regulation favour hybrid deployments.
Genetec: Open platforms key as physical security evolves
Businesses are prioritising hybrid, open security systems to protect existing hardware investments while adopting cloud and AI tools more gradually.
Future of AI is distributed infrastructure built on open source
Rising AI demand is exposing cloud bottlenecks, as firms eye in-house open source systems to cut costs and limit vendor lock-in.
Open source is powering the next generation of frontier AI
Rising inference demand and custom hardware needs are pushing AI infrastructure beyond standard cloud setups, boosting open source tools.
Exclusive: Cloudera builds Hadoop-free future platform
Existing customers get six years of support as Cloudera shifts new AI and analytics workloads to a Hadoop-free platform due in November.
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Apple's Unified Memory powers Kiraa AI's rapid automation
Australian firms can speed month-end processing from days to an hour by running Kiraa AI on Macs instead of costly cloud servers.
ClickHouse customer base soars on back of AI demand
AI agents are driving a sharp rise in demand for the real-time data platform, which added 1000 customers early in 2026 to top 4000.
SUSE targets Australia's industrial edge to drive growth
Australian miners, shippers and utilities could be next to benefit as SUSE pushes edge computing and AI inference beyond data centres.
Expert Columns
Digital sovereignty in practice: three examples of balancing control with global reach
Could AI enable successful socialism? Eliminating the fatal flaw
The Next Evolution of Data Centres Isn't Technology. It's People
Small but mighty - micro data centres are the foundation of security and disaster recovery
Building Infrastructure for an AI World in Motion
In the AI era, channel value is being redefined
Engineering for operations: going from security to insight
How businesses can avoid widespread harm from cloud outages
AI's data centre overhaul forcing a network rethink
The smartest AI will help us use less, not just do more
Interviews
Interviews and video coverage from the networkRecent Data centers News
Industrial AI shifts from demos to tightly controlled use
Industrial users are adopting AI only in tightly bounded roles, as safety, power and integration constraints keep deployments under close human control.
AMD launches 6th Gen EPYC chips for AI data centres
The new chips are already shipping from major hardware vendors as AMD targets heavier AI and cloud workloads in the data centre.
Commvault names top partner award winners at SHIFT 2026
Partners across storage, cloud and security were recognised as demand grows for cleaner recovery and stronger resilience around AI projects.
Illumio joins WWT's AI resilience framework for containment
The move places Illumio in a vendor-neutral model that helps organisations judge how to contain breaches in increasingly connected AI systems.
Red Hat launches OpenShift 5 with AI troubleshooting
Customers can now use natural language prompts to diagnose issues and assess upgrade risks on the updated hybrid cloud platform.
RACS cuts virtualisation costs with HPE Private Cloud
The move is set to save the not-for-profit college about AUD $2.1 million over five years after a proposed 300% licensing hike.
Dell expands AI factory with NVIDIA for agentic AI
More than 6,500 customers have adopted Dell's AI Factory with NVIDIA as it adds deskside systems, servers and managed services for agentic AI.
APDCA launches playbook for data centre policymakers
Governments across Asia-Pacific are being urged to prepare power, water and land planning now, as demand for AI infrastructure accelerates.
WitFoo says filtering data cuts AI security costs 79%
Filtering security logs before they reach AI models could save organisations 79% on annual costs, according to WitFoo's paper.
Data centre power market set to hit USD $107 billion
Rising AI power demand and grid delays are pushing operators to upgrade electrical systems as the market is forecast to reach USD $107.06 billion by 2034.
Green data centre market to hit USD $197.02bn by 2031
Rising demand for AI and cloud services is pushing operators to spend on lower-emission facilities as the market heads towards USD $197.02 billion by 2031.
VAST Data says 14 customers committed USD $10 billion
Four customers each committed more than USD $1 billion as demand for AI storage systems pushed VAST's aggregate customer pledges above USD $10 billion.
Fortinet brings AI security to Equinix distributed hub
Enterprises can now inspect AI prompts and responses across clouds and data centres through a validated Fortinet-Equinix architecture.
Rubrik launches hosted backup for on-premise NAS data
The hosted service shifts backup storage and maintenance off site, aimed at enterprises under pressure from rising hardware costs and ransomware risk.
NVIDIA launches Minerva to spot AI factory faults early
The software aims to cut downtime and boost output for operators of massive GPU clusters by turning event storms into likely root causes.
Rakon launches timing portfolio for AI data centres
Better timing is becoming a bottleneck in AI clusters, prompting Rakon to add clocks and oscillators for networking, synchronisation and compute layers.
DayOne backs NVIDIA's AI data centre design standard
The tie-up could help hyperscalers bring AI capacity online sooner by standardising how compute, power and cooling are deployed.
CyberPower launches rackmount UPS line with cloud monitoring
Australian businesses can now monitor critical servers and networking gear remotely, with six rackmount UPS models bundling cloud connectivity as standard.
Schneider Electric launches modular AI data centre design
Rising demand for AI computing is pushing operators towards repeatable builds, and Schneider Electric says its new modular design can speed deployments.
Toshiba launches platform for quantum-safe networks
Organisations facing future encryption risks can now trial Toshiba's system, which is designed to scale quantum-safe protection across existing networks.
Job Moves
Microsoft appoints Nick Walton as NZ Managing Director
TenPeaks appoints Whineray as Independent Chairman
DLA Piper appoints Edward Eisdell-Moore as NZ tech partner
Atturra rebrands Plan B to expand IT services in New Zealand
DLA Piper expands New Zealand team with senior promotions & hires
