Trends for the digital landscape in 2024: Roger Semprini from Equinix ventures an outlook

What trends will influence the digital landscape in Switzerland in 2024? Roger Semprini, Managing Director of Equinix in Switzerland, has a few thoughts on this. The US company offers network operator-independent data center and interconnection services and operates several data centers in our country.

What Roger Semprini wants from AI: "Efficient, trustworthy and sustainable"

Today's AI architectures are based on analyzing huge amounts of data - a resource-intensive process that is difficult to maintain on a large scale. "We expect that future AI architectures will not be data-driven, but data-informed. This means that they will be able to combine pattern recognition with human intuition. These models will be able to deliver more accurate results while consuming fewer computing cycles," says Roger Semprini. Another challenge is the fact that many people are unable to explain how AI systems arrive at a particular answer, he continues. "This has to change before the acceptance of AI can increase. AI algorithms need to be explainable so that people can trust them."

He continues: "We expect governments to play a role in the adoption of trustworthy AI. I think we will see stricter laws on what AI systems can and cannot do, and governments will develop their own AI models to help monitor and enforce these regulations. One area to keep an eye on is privacy and sovereignty regulations around AI. Today, there are few restrictions on how AI models use data. I expect this will need to change."

Sustainability as a central theme

There will be no getting around the issue of sustainability in 2024, says Roger Semprini. "I believe that a company without a sustainability strategy is a company without a future. The question is what this sustainability strategy should look like. In general, I believe that the digital infrastructure industry needs to prioritize a global vision for sustainability while planning and building locally and taking regional material concerns into account. Data center companies in Europe are driving initiatives under the EU Pact for Climate Neutral Data Centers, of which Equinix is a founding member."

According to Roger Semprini, investments will continue to increase as the industry strives to become carbon-neutral by 2030. According to Equinix, 96 % of its data centers worldwide are already powered by renewable energy. And AI is also providing useful services here. For example, Equinix uses artificial intelligence to increase energy efficiency in its Frankfurt data center by up to 9%: The AI-based cooling system that the company implemented together with the energy intelligence startup etalytics in the FR6 data center had a significant impact on its carbon footprint and led to an increase in energy efficiency of up to 9% of the data center infrastructure.

The age of quantum computing is dawning

Another recently announced cooperation between Equinix and Alice & Bob supports companies in Switzerland on their way into the quantum computing era, reports Roger Semprini. Through the collaboration, Equinix customers worldwide will benefit from secure access to Alice & Bob's quantum technology via Equinix Metal and Equinix Fabric, as well as Alice & Bob's enterprise quantum strategy services. "In the coming year, data centers will continue to be systemically relevant as physical infrastructure. The economy could not function for a day without data centers. A day without data centers would really turn our digitally networked lives upside down. That's why we will continue to do everything we can to provide our usual services in 2024," concludes Semprini.

Source: Equinix