1.DCA Expands Across Asia, Connecting North and Southeast Asia’s Thriving Data Center Markets
HONG KONG, March 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The Data Center Asia (DCA) is proud to announce its strategic expansion across Asia in 2025, cementing its role as the leading technology hub for Asia’s data center and digital transformation. Following the exciting launch of DCA Hong Kong — the flagship event targeting Northeast Asia, we are introducing two additional exhibitions in Malaysia and Indonesia — two of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic and rapidly growing data center markets. By strategically tailoring each edition to its respective market in focus, the event portfolio now delivers enhanced value and a sharper focus on connecting industry leaders and innovators.(From PRNewswire)
2.Bridge Data Centres Secures Landmark US$2.8 Billion Senior Secured Bank Financing to Fuel Data Centre Expansion
SINGAPORE, March 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Bridge Data Centres (“Bridge DC”), a Bain Capital-backed hyperscale data center platform, has secured US$2.8 billion in senior secured bank financing to fuel its data centre expansion, marking one of the largest-ever bank facilities for pan-Asian data centre operators. The financing, underwritten by a consortium of international and cross-regional banks, signals unwavering institutional confidence in Bridge DC’s expansion strategy to meet soaring demand for generative Artificial Intelligence and cloud infrastructure across the region.
BDC Malaysia facilities
Following a year of unprecedented growth at Bridge Data Centre, the company will leverage the funds to accelerate development of hyperscale campuses in high-growth markets, including Malaysia, Thailand and beyond.
“This financing milestone underscores strong market confidence in Bridge Data Centre’s leadership, underpinned by record contracted capacity growth,” said Eric Fan, President of Bridge Data Centres. “More than 11 lead banks have committed to the largest ever bank facility, reinforcing Bridge DC’s strong backing from diverse financial institutions.”
Bridge DC’s expansion is further bolstered by Bain Capital’s cross-regional data center platforms in the U.S., Europe, and China, ensuring seamless support for global hyperscalers.
“Bridge Data Centres has consistently demonstrated its ability to execute on its ambitious growth strategy, delivering world-class data centre solutions that meet the rapidly evolving needs of hyperscalers driven by generative AI,” said Drew Chen, Partner at Bain Capital. “This landmark financing facility is a testament to the strength of Bridge DC’s business growth trajectory. Bain Capital is proud to support Bridge DC as it continues to expand its footprint and consolidate its position as a leader in APAC’s digital infrastructure landscape.”(From PRNewswire)
3.Molex Addresses Hyperscale Data Center Growth with High-Performance, Low-Maintenance 'Plug and Play' VersaBeam EBO Interconnect Solutions
LISLE, Ill., March 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Molex, a global electronics leader and connectivity innovator, today unveils its VersaBeam Expanded Beam Optical (EBO) Interconnect Solutions, an innovative family of high-density fiber connectors optimized for hyperscale data center, cloud and edge computing environments. This robust product portfolio leverages the 3M™ EBO Ferrule, which expands the beam between connectors to reduce sensitivity to dust and debris, while dramatically decreasing the need for frequent cleaning, inspection and maintenance.
With VersaBeam EBO technology, faster deployment speeds can be achieved because fewer connections are required, reducing installation time and complexity. "The best designs often are the simplest, which is true with Molex VersaBeam EBO connectors as customers can make reliable connections with one click," said Trevor Smith, general manager, Optical Connectivity, Molex. "No special skillsets are needed to install these connectors, empowering organizations to rapidly reap the performance and cost benefits of resilient, scalable fiber connectivity."
Next-Gen Connectors for Tomorrow's Data Centers
To keep pace with the unrelenting rise of AI-driven capacity increases, data center providers must continually upgrade bandwidth while minimizing infrastructure changes. Ideally suited for intra-rack and server connections, Molex's VersaBeam EBO technology fits more fibers into a very small form factor (VSFF) to maximize rack-unit usage and minimize space.
"Expanded Beam Optical connectors are the future of high-speed, resilient data center infrastructure," said Kevin Twomey, global portfolio director, Electronics Materials Solution Division, 3M. "We are excited to collaborate with Molex to transform multi-fiber connectivity in data centers. This technology is a game-changer compared to traditional connectors — significantly reducing contamination risks while boosting deployment speed and performance."
Molex's VersaBeam EBO connectors deliver high-fiber density without spring-force limitations, enabling optimal alignment and plug-and-play assembly. They are available in single- and multi-mode options, including 12- and 16-fiber connectors, as well as high-density connectors with as many as 144 fibers per connector, to facilitate more flexible system designs, easier cable routing in space-constrained environments, and expedited data center turn-ups.
Faster, Easier Deployment Leads to Reduced TCO
VersaBeam EBO connectors do not require a lot of effort or expertise to deploy and maintain, which alleviates current concerns over labor shortages of highly skilled data center technicians. Moreover, both termination times and component counts are reduced, which saves operational expenses, lowers supply chain complexity and produces turn-up time savings for reduced TCO.
"Molex's VersaBeam EBO brings tremendous value by removing the struggle of connecting our data center infrastructure while simplifying cleaning and inspecting every connection at a lower power density," said Dave Boertjes, senior director, Advanced Photonic Networks R&D, Ciena. "By utilizing VersaBeam EBO, we achieved a 6X time reduction in inspection cleaning, which is critical to speeding deployments and keeping pace with the current landscape."
During a 3M customer field test of EBO connectors with a hyperscale data center customer, similar time savings were realized when compared to the deployment of conventional MPO connectors. For 3M's test, the elimination of cleaning and inspection yielded a total time savings of 85%, totaling more than six hours in reduced deployment time.(From PRNewswire)
4.Bitfarms Ltd. (BITF) Advances Stronghold Acquisition, Sells Paraguay Data Center, and Expands Infrastructure
KKR Global Head of Digital Infrastructure Waldemar Szlezak recently joined 'Bloomberg Surveillance' to discuss AI’s increasing energy demands and he sees AI as a lasting technological shift, comparable to electrification or the internet, rather than a “fad”. While short-term fluctuations may occur, he believes the overall trajectory remains strong. He also discussed how his firm is positioning itself to capitalize on this trend through data centers and power investments. While Nvidia’s latest earnings highlight AI's momentum, Szlezak’s firm’s approach remains focused on infrastructure, especially in data centers and power generation.
Szlezak explained that his firm is shifting its data center strategy by emphasizing inference-based facilities near major population centers rather than large-scale training data centers. The firm currently owns five data center platforms across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, with a recent expansion into the Middle East. Additionally, it is heavily investing in energy infrastructure, recognizing that AI's rapid expansion will significantly increase electricity demand. He pointed to the firm’s $3 billion investment in a transmission network across multiple states as an example of how the firm is supporting power distribution.(From Insider Monkey)
5.Green Computing Ecosystems: IDTechEx Explores Sustainable Data Center
Data centers can be likened to an ecosystem of computing facilities that contain many facets required to store and handle data. IDTechEx's latest report, "Sustainability for Data Centers 2025-2035: Green Technologies, Market Forecasts, and Players", unpacks efforts being made in the data center sector towards increased sustainability in response to the rising CO2 emissions from the development of AI.
Types of data center
There are three types of data centers: enterprise, colocation, and hyperscale. Hyperscale data centers represent data storage on a gigantic scale - they are usually defined to contain at least 5,000 servers and occupy huge amounts of physical space. Leading hyperscalers racing to make the most of AI's boom include Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon. All of these players have been proactive in making data centers more sustainable. Over the past two decades, significant improvements have been made in the energy efficiency of cooling systems for data centers. Additionally, these data center hyperscalers have been leading supporters of novel renewable energy projects and emerging carbon dioxide removal technologies. As sustainability remains a key corporate priority for hyperscalers, there are many lessons to be learned about green data center solutions.
The need for sustainability
IDTechEx's report covers the specific areas within data centers that require sustainable technologies to reduce emissions, improve energy efficiency, and increase circularity and recyclability. Decarbonizing power generation could be achieved by employing renewable energy sources including solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, fuel cells, and batteries and energy storage, all of which are included within the report. Another area ripe for impactful decarbonization is low-carbon construction using green concrete technologies. Also, carbon dioxide removal technologies that generate carbon credits can provide a CO2 offsetting solution for hard-to-abate indirect supply chain emissions.
Motivations for sustainability
Lowering both costs and emissions can be achieved with improved energy efficiency as operational costs are naturally decreased and less CO2 is produced.
Low-carbon power generation may become more appealing alongside the diminishing availability of electricity. IDTechEx reports that a lack of electricity in some regions has led to new data center construction being paused, meaning new players within the sector will need to actively begin employing means of acquiring electricity, such as through tariffs, purchasing power agreements, or microgrids. Fossil fuels are a well-established and reliable power source that, unfortunately, come with a hefty climate price tag. In recent years, wind and solar power generation projects have consistently offered lower electricity costs than fossil fuel incumbents - illustrating the economic benefits of supporting sustainable solutions.
The lack of regulation for data centers
Despite data centers currently lacking regulatory pressure to decarbonize, the rise of AI and its growing computational impact on economies means the large carbon footprints of data centers will only continue to grow. With governments wanting to reduce carbon emissions to meet net-zero by 2050 targets, regulations may emerge in the near future according to IDTechEx.(From IDTechEx)
