The Future of Data Centers in 2025

The data center landscape is constantly evolving under the impetus of rapid technological progress. Therefore, companies must keep up with industry trends. For over a decade, data centers have been transforming towards multi-vendor, hybrid cloud, high-performance architectures, and even edge computing. Looking ahead to 2025, here are three data center priorities that every IT professional should consider: 

Formulate an AI strategy 

The question is not "What will AI do?" but "What won't it change?" 2024 is the year of AI, with major discussions and disruptions taking place in data centers across almost every industry, whether they are on-premises, in the public cloud, or at the edge. With the strong growth of IoT devices, new applications from an expanding array of startups and use cases, and widespread consumer interest, it's time to modernize data centers to meet the demands of AI workloads and applications. 

Therefore, an AI strategy should be part of the 2025 data center priorities. Everything starts with an understanding of the use cases or challenges that AI is trying to solve, and then thinking in reverse to propose the most suitable computing solution for that need. For example, companies with small AI workloads and low budgets can benefit from purchasing AI-enabled laptops, edge devices in office branches, or servers that can add accelerators such as NVIDIA graphics processing units or Intel Gaudi. 

For large-scale AI projects involving vast data repositories, ultra-low latency, or high processing demands, companies may consider a complete overhaul of their data centers or the adoption of modular data centers to meet these requirements. 

More space or hybrid cloud-edge approaches are needed to meet the substantial cooling, cabling and power requirements. 

Leveraging public cloud providers for edge computing can also help ensure the best solutions are in place while ultimately minimizing overall costs. Given the continuous progress and innovation of smaller and cheaper computing capabilities being rapidly released, it is crucial to formulate AI strategies and business cases. 

The transformation of virtualization solutions 

Another hot topic in 2024 is that companies prioritize their virtualization strategies, and we are likely to continue seeing this topic in 2025. Market changes, new pricing strategies, and the rise of new products and new players are driving many companies to re-examine their on-premises virtualization strategies. Whether companies ultimately continue to use their current hypervisor vendors or not, 2025 is a good year to re-evaluate virtualization needs to optimize current data center solutions or migrate to other solutions, whether on-premises or in the cloud. 

As supplier competition intensifies, companies should assess the cost implications, available expertise, alternative options, and the timetable required for implementation, as these transitions and migrations may take months or even years to complete. 

Adopt an overall computational view 

Companies are increasingly adopting hybrid multi-cloud and data center solutions. Due to the demands for low latency and high bandwidth, computing at the edge and on end-user devices is also on the rise. Given the complexity of computing in so many environments, managing the infrastructure has become more challenging. 

Regrettably, many organizations separate the cloud from data centers or internal IT from business functions, operating in silos and failing to fully adopt a unified hybrid approach. Although their goal is to manage computing, processing, and storage resources, these groups often employ radically different strategies, hindering coordination and efficiency. Regardless of whether computing occurs in the cloud, on-premises data centers, business sites, or devices themselves, companies should create an overall computing view and objective for software, infrastructure, and total resource spending in these environments. 

As data centers undergo rapid transformation, IT professionals must prioritize a strategic approach to AI, adapt to the changes in virtualization, and adopt an overall computing perspective to support workloads. Focusing on these key areas can not only enhance operational efficiency but also prepare organizations for future growth and innovation.