Yesterday, Schneider Electric hosted a panel session, “Is the future of data centres modular” at the 2026 Datacloud Global Congress in Cannes. During the discussion, it was noted that deployment cycles have shortened from an average of 5 years to as little as 18-24 months – all the more challenging as data center operators now build multiple facilities concurrently, across regions. Additionally, it’s no longer feasible to stick with old hardware when GPUs are pushing tighter refresh cycles, with performance and efficiency gains affecting profitability if newer hardware isn’t leveraged every 18- to 24 months.

For these reasons, data center owners and operators are increasingly turning to modular design, which through standardized elements and fixed dimensions and configurations, can accelerate programmatic delivery and improve scalability.

In today’s story, “Top-10 components of modular data center design,” RCRTech highlights the modular blocks and components that can help data center operators reduce design and assembly timelines. Also check out other insights in “top stories,” below, as well as the day’s news in “What you need to know.”

Susana 2

Susana Schwartz
Technology Editor
RCRTech

AI Infrastructure Top Stories

Fiber isn’t the only story: Fixed broadband is essential to generative AI, cloud computing, and real-time inference, but Opensignal’s recent comparison of internet services from 5 top providers reveals cable is quickly closing the performance gap.

Thailand as an AI hotbed: Cushman & Wakefield’s Pritesh Swamy talks to RCRTech about Thailand’s data center development pipeline, which has increased from 232 MW to 1,051 MW following major hyperscaler investment announcements.

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AI Today: What You Need to Know

Intel at Computex: For those waiting in the long HBM supply chain line, the keynote by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan at Computex might bring comfort, as Crescent Island will be a data center GPU that is “built for agentic AI” and inference.

Expanded AMD Support: AMD made waves at Computex by confirming that its AM5 platform will be supported through 2029, and it will no longer be China exclusive with its Radeon RX 9070 GRE, which features the 4nm Navi 48 silicon.am

Texas Batch System: A flood of “phantom data centers” requests has pushed ERCOT to change its evaluation system so it can review projects in batches and require financial commitments to filter out illegitimate proposals.

Google virtual power plants: Seeking a workaround for grid delays, Google signed a “Bring Your Own Capacity” agreement with Voltus. The deal aggregates 100MW of energy via distributed batteries and smart thermostats to ease local grid bottlenecks.

UN issues sustainability warning: The UN calculates that global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, produced about 208 million tons of carbon dioxide, and will double energy consumption to 945 TWh by 2030.

EOE system simulation: Keysight announced support for GlobalFoundries’ silicon photonics process technology in its Advanced Design System Photonic Designer, expanding its foundry ecosystem for photonic integrated circuit development.

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