On 4 July, the German Bundestag elected the members of the Digital Services Coordinator Advisory Board. Alexander Rabe, Managing Director of the eco Association, was elected to the Advisory Board with a cross-party majority as one of four representatives from industry associations.

In an eco interview, Joachim Astel, Chief Regulatory Officer at noris network, talks about the company’s data centres and explains how AI is already shaping the industry today.

Data centers are facing a variety of challenges, such as a shortage of skilled workers, energy efficiency and ESG requirements. In this interview, Marc Fröse, Group Commercial Director at Portus Data Centers, explains how Portus Data Centers supports the digital sovereignty and security of its customers.

When the kick-off of this year’s European Football Championship (EC) sounds tomorrow (Friday), Internet usage will also increase significantly. A total of 61 per cent of Germans are planning to watch this year’s European Championship.

The sounds of files, cutters and hammers once echoed around the Old Locksmith in Offenbach am Main. In early June 2024, however, the Data Centre Expert Summit 2024 was all about data centres as tools for our digital future – with the support of our sponsors ABB, EkkoSense AI, GOLDBECK, Robert C. Spies, Huawei and Global Switch.

In the coming years, corporate sustainability reporting obligations will increasingly be extended to small and medium-sized data centres. Péter Müllner from GLOBAL SWITCH FM GMBH will explain what this already means for the data centre industry at the Data Center Expert Summit on 4 June in Offenbach am Main.

Only by working together can we shape a green digitalisation and future – that was the tenor of this year’s DIGISUSTAIN at KAP Europa. On 29 April, eco hosted the “Digital and Sustainable Transformation” stage and welcomed numerous players from business and politics who are driving forward sustainable digital transformation.

The “We give data a home! The data centre industry in Germany” Alliance Talk on Wednesday, 15 May 2024, at BASECAMP Berlin brought together representatives from the Internet industry, users and politicians to discuss both the importance of and the necessary framework conditions for data centres in Germany.

The German Federal Cabinet approved the draft bill to amend the German Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) on 22 May 2024. The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany is in favour of using the opportunity to implement measures for a more realistic implementation of the requirements and international comparability in addition to the formal adjustments to align the EnEfG with the reporting obligations of the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

How does artificial intelligence (AI) improve energy efficiency in data centres and also support the upcoming ESG reporting? Matthew Farnell, Global Sales and Marketing Director at EkkoSense, will talk about this at the Data Center Expert Summit on 4 June. His German colleague Artur Faust, Sales Manager DACH, answers our questions in this interview.

Waste heat utilisation, greater energy efficiency, CO2 reduction: the data centre industry is currently addressing these approaches from various angles. As part of the event “Current and Future Energy Storage Technologies for the Data Centre Industry” at the University of Bayreuth campus, over 60 experts discussed these topics via various presentations and workshops.

Establishing data centres on well-connected industrial sites promotes modern, sustainable and socially acceptable neighbourhood developments, says Daniel Schmitz from GOLDBECK Südwest GmbH in an interview.

In a short interview, Volker Ludwig, Managing Director of Digital Realty and Deputy Spokesperson for the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, discusses how data centres can become more sustainable – with the help of AI, for example.

Dr Ralph Hintemann, Partner & Senior Researcher at the Borderstep Institute, will be speaking at the Data Center Expert Summit on 4 June. He explains what it's all about in this interview.

What are the challenges in planning new data centres and expanding existing ones? Sascha E. Pollok, CEO of IPHH GmbH, will be speaking at the Data Centre Expert Summit on the topic of "Greenfield & Brownfield". In this interview, he explains what it's all about.

Sandra Warg from envia TEL GmbH gives tips for resilient and redundant digital infrastructures. She will be speaking at the Data Center Expert Summit (DCES) on 3-4 June 2024, at the Alte Schlosserei in Offenbach.

How can resilient infrastructures be designed? Experts from the eco Networks Competence Groups and KRITIS will discuss this on 16 April at the DE-CIX MeetingCenter in Frankfurt. One of the panellists at the German-language event Resilience Recommendations in the Context of Municipal Network Infrastructures: Municipalities...

Millions of Germans are currently unable to get to to their usual workplaces or attend scheduled appointments due to the railway strike. A recent eco survey has shown that the use of digital technologies and applications such as video conferencing is once again the method of choice to compensate for this situation.

The EU Commission's Energy Efficiency Directive requires operators of data centres with an IT capacity of 500 kW or more to publish their energy efficiency data in the future. The eco Alliance is in favour of common European standards for the energy-efficient and climate-neutral operation of data centres. However, the current reporting obligations should be kept within reasonable limits.

Modern fire protection contributes to sustainability, says Anne Omar, data centre expert at FOGTEC, in an eco member interview.

The German federal government’s next Digital Summit will take place in Frankfurt in 2024. This was officially announced today, Friday, by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI).

Survey shows: IT decision-makers in Germany are in favour of electricity tax relief for data centre operators instead of further burdens.

Digitalisation creates connections among people and offers space for individual freedom and greater prosperity, says synaforce CEO Andreas Braidt in an eco-member interview.

Associations in Germany are calling for improvements in the conditions for network rollout. Today the Gigabit Symposium – organised by ANGA, Bitkom, BREKO, BUGLAS, eco and VATM – is reviewing the situation together with politicians and the industry, with the current German federal government now two years in action. The important EU level groundwork is also under discussion.

German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) Robert Habeck recently presented a strategy paper that, in particular, provides for a so-called bridge electricity price to relieve energy-intensive companies of the burden of rising electricity prices.

The use of digital levers in the industrial, urban and rural sectors will enable CO2 savings of 163 megatonnes by 2050. This is shown in a study conducted by eco and Arthur D. Little in cooperation with the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, the latter which was founded under the umbrella of eco.

In Germany, the Internet industry is recovering more quickly than expected from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis. This is conveyed in the update of the eco Industry Monitor. In 2023, eco and Arthur D. Little predict a growth rate of 14 per cent. Moreover, in the medium to long term, artificial intelligence promises significant growth in all industry segments.

The German Bundestag is expected to adopt the Energy Efficiency Act today, Thursday. The eco Alliance sees great potential in the new act for optimising the utilisation of waste heat from data centres, and thus also for achieving the climate targets in Germany. At the same time, the following is called for: In order to extract the maximum sustainability potential from digital infrastructures and also to make the best possible utilisation of data centre waste heat, the federal, state and municipalities must remedy further political deficits.

We spoke to Dr. Michael Lipka, Senior Manager Technology Strategy, Huawei Technologies Germany, about the crucial role of digital infrastructures and wireless technologies for Smart Home use cases. On 12 September 2023, the eco Networks and IoT Competence Groups  will meet at the Huawei OpenLab in Ismaning to discuss groundbreaking topics of current and future Smart Home applications under the motto "Digital Infrastructure as the Basis of Smart Home Applications" (a German-language event).

In the course of the German federal government’s planned Energy Efficiency Act, politicians and the Internet industry have recently been intensively discussing how providers of the digital infrastructure ecosystem can further improve their energy efficiency in Germany. A particular focus here has been on the data centre industry and the requirements for waste heat delivery.