In this episode, we delve into the complex interplay between performance and sustainability in data centers. As technology continues to advance, so too does the demand for powerful, efficient data centers. However, this growing demand also raises concerns about energy consumption and environmental impact.

For this installment of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, we bring you the first episode in a new series with our friends from the Nomad Futurist Foundation.

Nomad Futurist is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established, per the group's mission statement, "to demystify the world of digital infrastructure and the related technologies that impact every aspect of our daily lives." Committed to educating youth in underprivileged communities, promoting diversity and inclusion, and opening up opportunities for growth and new career paths, the group says its "primary focus is to empower and inspire younger generations through exposure to the underlying technologies that power our digital world."

Nomad Futurist is known for appointing individuals throughout the data center industry to its ranks of Ambassadors and Advisors, who work to promote the organization's ethos and goals in their professional spheres. The organization's members are a pervasive presence in the data center sector, to be found in attendance and presenting at most industry events in the U.S. and abroad.

The purpose of the Data Center Frontier/Nomad Futurist: Field Report series -- aka "Nomads at the Frontier" -- is therefore to gather recurring industry insight, expertise and commentary from Nomad Futurist leaders and ambassadors, firsthand and in the field, as they participate in these events.

For the first installment of Nomads at the Frontier, Data Center Frontier's Editor in Chief Matt Vincent called into Las Vegas during the debut of Yotta, an event conceived and brought forth by Data Center Dynamics aimed at unifying leaders and stakeholders in digital infrastructure industry at large.

For this interview, DCF spoke with Nomad Futurist Advisors Jodie Lin, Customer Advocate and CSR with data center infrastructure company Mirapath, Inc., and Illissa Miller, CEO of iMiller Public Relations, a firm focused on the digital infrastructure industry, for their reflections and impressions from the environs of Yotta 2024. To begin, we asked Lin and Miller for their top takeaways from the show regarding the confluence between the larger world of digital infrastructure and data centers.

Next, given how attuned data centers are to the AI technology shift, we asked Nomads Lin and Miller for their perceptions of the level of preparation within rest of the digital infrastructure space, as heard from at Yotta, for facing up to AI's demands and opportunities. DCF also wondered whether, based on impressions received from Yotta, the data center industry’s obsessions with power, cooling, sustainability, and managing exponential growth in wake of AI seem to be shared equally by the larger world of digital infrastructure.

Finally, owing to certain breakthroughs in the areas of regulation, funding, and planned deployment, this year has felt like a tipping point in terms of optimism for advanced nuclear energy, especially in the US data center industry. As such, we asked our Nomads to gauge whether this anticipation for "new nuclear" energy was as palpable in the larger world of digital infrastructure as encountered at Yotta?

Rehlko, formerly Kohler Energy, is setting a new standard in the data center industry by offering the first generator in the data center industry with an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). The company recently released a brand new EPD in the form of a PEP ecopassport® that provides transparent, third-party verified insights into the KD Series™ generator’s environmental impact across its lifecycle. Here’s a link to the report that details how Rehlko is committed to transparently communicating its product's lifecycle footprint and how the process is accelerating data centers' efforts to measure Scope 3 emissions and work toward net-zero ambitions.