Bernard (Bernie) Oegema P. Eng., MBA

About Bernie:

Bernie is an Electrical Engineer with a long track record working in the data centre world with various manufacturers. Prior to joining Siemens, he worked at IBM in their data centre design/build team and widened his experience to include controls and mechanical systems in the upgrade and new construction of data centres for high performance computing, enterprise, and colocation. He has seen the industry evolve from year-round AC operation to more efficient cooling designs with increased use of free-cooling and the increasing trend to recover and reuse that waste heat. Bernie is helping Siemens’ clients to employ new ways to use emerging technologies to improve the efficiency of data centre operations while maintaining the highest levels of reliability and flexibility demanded of their mission critical facilities. 

Breakout Session 1: 9:45am-10:45am

Topic: Data Centre Trends and the Path to Greater Sustainability

Data Centres are a critical part IT infrastructure and have supported enterprise IT and Cloud applications quietly with very little exposure to public perception.  With the increasing capabilities of AI, there has been a step function change in the growth of power demand to support the increasing demand for the benefits AI can provide for almost every sector of the economy.  This growth has brought data centres into the public eye as they are consuming a much greater percentage of the electrical grid and even resorting to self-generation using fossil fuels.

Due to the need for AI processors to be in close proximity to be most effective, the power density of the equipment has gotten so high that the most effective cooling is via liquid, replacing fan-powered air cooling.  This presents and opportunity for heat recovery and reuse.

Another difference of AI workloads is that they consume power erratically with large swings with various ferequency.  This creates an issue for the data centre infrastructure and the energy supply, whether it is a utility or on-site generator. 

Bernie will explain these nuances in more detail and how we can turn them into opportunities to lesson the impact of these AI factories on the environment.