Data Industry

Digitization is at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, and/or Society 5.0. The fourth industrial revolution evolved from the work started with control and automation of manufacturing processes in the third industrial revolution, and brings automation to bear on all engineered processes, be it physical, or administrative. Digitization promises to bring objective, evidence-based, decision-making to all aspects of society, at scale, so as to enable us to steer toward a sustainable society. Data centers embody the core information technology that supports this cyberphysical world. Ensuring that this technology (data centers) itself develops in a sustainable manner not only requires careful orchestration of the available compute, storage, and communication resources but also how we manufacture, maintain, and recycle. This chapter focuses on the former, and provides hints toward the latter. The data center story that unfolds presents itself as a microcosmos of the broader sustainability questions affecting our world, and how we can approach them.