Data Center Construction Booms in Hot Climates

For all the planning that goes into building a data center, a surprising number of the world's facilities go up in adverse climates. And by that we mean hot climates, which put added pressure on the elaborate cooling systems that keep those stacks of expensive hardware from overheating. An analysis by Rest of World, an online publication that focuses on tech stories occurring outside the West, determined that many data centers "are located in regions that are too hot for optimal operations."

Using the range recommended by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Rest of World set out to determine which of the world's data centers fall outside 18 to 27 degrees Celsius (64.4 to 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The team discovered that many data centers exist in too-hot climates—and that 21 nations keep all of their data centers in climates considered ...