The Data Center Frontier Show

Charting the Future of AI Storage Infrastructure In this episode, Solidigm Director of Strategic Planning Brian Jacobosky guides listeners through a tech-forward conversation on how storage infrastructure is helping redefine the AI-era data center. The discussion frames storage as more than just a cost factor; it's also a strategic building block for performance, efficiency, and savings. Storage Moves to the Center of AI Data Infrastructure Jacobosky explains how, in the AI-driven era, storage is being elevated from a forgotten metric like “dollars per gigabyte” to a core priority: maximizing GPU utilization, managing soaring power draw, and unlocking space savings. He illustrates how every watt and every square inch counts. As GPU compute scales dramatically, storage efficiency is being engineered to enable maximum density and throughput. High-Capacity SSDs as a Game-Changer Jacobosky spotlights Solidigm D5-P5336 122TB SSDs as emblematic of the shift. Rather than a simple technical refresh, these drives represent a tectonic realignment in how data centers are being designed for huge capacity and optimized performance. With all-flash deployments offering up to nine times the space savings compared to hybrid architectures, Jacobosky underscores how SSD density can enable more GPU scale within fixed power and space budgets. This could even unlock achieving a 1‑petabyte SSD by the end of the decade. Embedded Efficiency The episode brings environmental considerations to the forefront. Jacobosky shares how an “all‑SSD” strategy can dramatically slash physical footprints as well as energy consumption. From data center buildout through end of lifecycle drive retirement, efficiency is driving both operational cost savings and ESG benefits — helping reduce concrete and steel usage, power draw, and e‑waste. Pioneering Storage Architectures and Cooling Innovation Listeners learn how AI-first innovators like Neo Cloud-style providers and sovereign AI operators lead the charge in deploying next-generation storage. Jacobosky also previews the Solidigm PS-1010 E1.S form factor, an NVIDIA fanless server solution that enables direct‑to‑chip Cold-Plate-Cooled SSDs integrated into GPU servers. He predicts that this systems-level integration will become a standard for high-density AI infrastructure. Storage as a Strategic Investment Solidigm challenges the notion that high-capacity storage is cost prohibitive. Within the framework of the AI token economy, Jacobosky explains that the true measure becomes minimizing cost per token and time to first token and, when storage is optimized for performance, capacity, and efficiency, the total cost of ownership (TCO) will often prove favorable after the first evaluation. Looking Ahead: Memory Wall, Inference Workloads, Liquid Cooling Jacobosky ends with a look ahead to where storage innovation will lead in the next five years. As AI models grow in size and complexity, he argues, storage is increasingly acting as an extension of memory, breaking through the “memory wall” for large inference workloads. Companies will design infrastructure from the ground up with liquid-cooling, future-scalable storage, and storage that supports massive model deployments without compromising latency. This episode is essential listening for data center architects, AI infrastructure strategists, and sustainability leaders looking to understand how storage is fast-becoming a defining factor in AI-ready data centers of the future.

Buddy Rizer, Executive Director of Loudoun County Economic Development, and Lila Jaber, founder of Florida’s Women in Energy Leadership Forum, dive into Florida's exciting rise as a data center hub. They discuss Florida's energy advantages, including excess capacity and proactive utilities, which set it apart from areas like Loudoun County. The duo also highlights Florida’s attractive tax incentives, its strategic location for Latin American connectivity, and how local universities are gearing up to provide top tech talent for future growth.

This podcast explores the rapidly evolving thermal and water challenges facing today’s data centers as AI workloads push rack densities to unprecedented levels. The discussion highlights the risks and opportunities tied to liquid cooling—from pre-commissioning practices and real-time monitoring to system integration and water stewardship. Ecolab’s innovative approaches to thermal management can not only solve operational constraints but also deliver competitive advantage by improving efficiency, reducing resource consumption, and strengthening sustainability commitments.

Join Bill Tierney of The Data Center Construction Alliance, as he discusses some of the emerging challenges facing data center development today. Topics will include how increasing collaboration between OEMs, owners, contractors, and sub-contractors is leading to some exciting and innovative solutions in the design and construction of data centers. He will also share some examples of how collaboration has led to new ideas and methodologies in the field. 

AI networks are driving dramatic changes in data center design, especially around power, cooling, and connectivity. Modern GPU-powered AI data centers require far more energy and generate much more heat than traditional CPU-based setups, pushing cabinets to new power densities and necessitating advanced cooling solutions like liquid direct-to-chip cooling. These environments also demand significantly more fiber cabling to handle increased data flows, with deeper cabinets and complex layouts that make traditional rear-access cabling impractical.

In this DCF Trends-Nomads at the Summit Podcast episode, the hosts from Data Center Frontier and Nomad Futurist sit down with Adrienne Pierce, CEO of New Sun Road, to explore the emerging frontier of sovereign and renewable energy solutions for modular data center deployment. With over 1,500 microgrids under management via the company’s Stellar platform, Pierce brings a field-tested perspective on how flexible, AI-driven energy controls can empower edge and sub-10 MW data center systems—especially in regions where traditional grid infrastructure can’t keep up with AI-era demands. This discussion dives into the real-world opportunities for modular, microgrid-powered data centers to unlock new markets, reduce energy costs, and create more resilient and autonomous compute infrastructure at the edge and beyond. Expect sharp insights into what it means to decouple data center growth from utility bottlenecks—and how the right energy intelligence can accelerate both sustainability and scalability.

In this DCF Trends-Nomads at the Summit Podcast episode, the hosts of Data Center Frontier and Nomad Futurist sit down with UVA Darden MBA candidates Tosin Fashola and Albert Odum for an energizing conversation about next-generation data infrastructure—and why they believe Africa is poised to be its future epicenter. With professional backgrounds spanning data center strategy at KPMG and government-led implementations in Ghana, Tosin and Albert bring fresh, globally-minded perspectives on AI infrastructure, regional power strategy, and the role of connectivity in economic transformation. Expect a wide-ranging dialogue on the untapped potential of African markets, the roadmap to building sovereign cloud capacity and IXPs, and how a new generation of leaders is preparing to close the global digital divide—one hyperscale project at a time.

In this DCF Trends-Nomads at the Summit Podcast episode, Data Center Frontier editors and Nomad Futurist hosts sit down with Greg Stover, Vertiv’s Global Director, Hi-Tech Development. The discussion delves into Stover’s work at the intersection of advanced cooling technologies, hyperscale growth, and AI-driven infrastructure design. Drawing on his experience guiding Vertiv’s strategy for high-density deployments, liquid cooling adoption, and close collaboration with hyperscalers and chipmakers, Stover offers a forward-looking perspective on how evolving compute architectures, thermal management innovations, and market forces are redefining the competitive edge in the data center industry.

In this DCF Trends-Nomads at the Summit Podcast episode, the ever-curious, future-focused podcast hosts from Data Center Frontier and Nomad Futurist reunite with Infrastructure Masons CEO Santiago Suinaga for a timely, in-depth follow-up to his impactful debut on the DCF Show. With AI infrastructure growth hitting warp speed, the conversation will dig deeper into Suinaga’s vision for how the digital infrastructure community can scale responsibly—without losing sight of net zero goals, workforce development, or supply chain accountability. Expect a candid, high-level exchange on emerging regulatory pressures, the embodied carbon challenge, and why flexible cooling and modular design must be table stakes for the AI-powered data center of the future. Suinaga will also share the latest on iMasons' Climate Accord, job-matching platform, and new cross-sector partnerships—all aimed at fostering sustainability, equity, and innovation in an industry racing to keep pace with exponential demand.

In this DCF Trends-Nomads at the Summit Podcast episode, Chris James, CEO of NoesisAI, delivers a sweeping, insight-rich overview of how different classes of AI models—from LLMs and RAG to vision AI and scientific workloads—are driving a new wave of infrastructure decisions across the data center landscape. With a sharp focus on the diverging needs of training vs. inference, James breaks down what it takes to support today’s AI—from GPU-intensive clusters with high-speed interconnects and liquid cooling to inference-optimized, edge-deployed accelerators. He also explores the rapidly shifting hardware ecosystem, including the rise of custom silicon, heterogeneous computing, and where the battle between NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and hyperscaler-designed chips is headed. Whether you're designing for scalability, sustainability, or the bleeding edge, this conversation offers a field guide to the infrastructure behind intelligent computing.