Pro Tech Radar

Data centers are being pushed to their limits, but digital twins could help

March 13, 2025
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  • Three in four decision-makers know that AI is responsible for added data center pressure
  • Renewable energy is key, but water cooling is disapproved by one in four
  • Leaders see digital twins as ‘game changer’ for innovation

New research from Candence has revealed that the world’s current data centers are being pushed to their absolute limits as companies expand investments in artificial intelligence and other cloud services.

Three-quarters (74%) of decision-makers state that AI demands are putting increased pressure on data centers, with 86% warning that a failure to innovate could have serious to moderate consequences.

Amidst the ongoing battle for data center improvements, companies are also pushing to make them more sustainable, but there remains a lot of work to be done.

We need to focus on data center improvements

Nine in 10 (88%) are now actively working to enhance energy efficiency across their data center operations, however fewer than one in three (31%) feel that they’re actually doing enough. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (70%) feel that the national power grid could be at its limit, highlighting the role that more local renewable energy sources can play at these campuses.

On the topic of sustainability, one in four (26%) went as far as saying that they would never use liquid cooling, which requires large amounts of water and can often have negative impacts on nearby societies.

However, there are plenty of challenges preventing meaningful development, with leaders concerned about the cost of implementing new technologies (42%), a lack of skilled staff (35%), incompatibility with legacy systems (31%), uncertainty about future technologies (30%) and an unclear return on investment (33%).

Although artificial intelligence is frequently seen in natural language assistants (56%), causing the high demand for powerful data centers, Cadence says it can also help tackle the mounting problem. Its uses in automating capacity management (50%), demand forecasting (54%) and fault detection (60%) could play a considerable role in the development of data centers.

Looking ahead, three in four (73%) see digital twins as ‘game changers’ for data center innovation, with four in five (81%) already recognizing their value and one in four (21%) non-users preparing to adopt digital twins in the next 12 months.

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