Working in command centers responsible for protecting artificial intelligence places immense pressure on employees tasked with monitoring hundreds of data centers worldwide. These centers are the lifeblood of online banking, messaging, and AI services, making self-control essential.
In Singapore, specifically at a command center belonging to the US-based Digital Realty, which operates data centers globally, analysts sit surrounded by digital maps and monitors of warehouse-like centers filled with constantly buzzing servers.
Their job isn''t just to respond to outages as they occur, but also to detect early warning signs, such as sudden temperature spikes, to prevent service disruptions.
Daniel Naing, 37, and his colleagues receive thousands of alerts every week.
"If I show signs of fear, my team will panic too," he told AFP. "So even if I''m nervous, I make sure to hide it."
This command center, along with two others in Europe and the United States, monitors more than 300 data centers across six continents around the clock.
As the need for more data centers grows, so does the political debate surrounding them in many parts of the world, fueled by the race to develop artificial intelligence tools that demand enormous computing power.
“Without these centers, everything would grind to a halt,” says Serene Nah, CEO and Asia Pacific director at Digital Reality, in a world increasingly reliant on high technology.
According to Nah, data centers have become critical infrastructure and a matter “perhaps as important as national security,” adding, “We have to ensure that these centers never stop working.”
Nah noted that “there is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding our work,” amid public opposition that data centers emit “huge amounts of carbon and heat and consume a lot of water.”
Around the world, tech giants like Microsoft and Alibaba are racing to build their own data centers to train and operate AI models, in a global race estimated to cost trillions of dollars.
Digital Realty''s global command center is based in Singapore, and is located within one of three data centers operated by the company