A new journey for My Data Sys enabling Green Biomass in Data Centers in Malaysia.

TL:DR Never underestimate the power of friendly discussions and always be open to new horizons. When opportunity knocks let it in and take advantage of what is on offer. Our new journey with Vertiv as a solutions partner starts now!

Some discussions are more profound than others. A few months ago, we had a social meeting scheduled to talk to a prominent Malaysian regarding Bamboo, Palm and agriculture in general. The expectation was to talk about furniture and perhaps some bamboo chopsticks over coffee. To my surprise the conversation started with the fact that they are in the process of patenting a new Bamboo Biomass Carbonization process and the generators can produce 5MW to 15MW of energy. The engineer in me immediately woke up and we were all ears.

Charcoal properties of Malaysian bamboo charcoal carbonized at 750 °C

Feasibility Study on Biomass Bamboo Renewable Energy in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan

Production of Activated carbon from industrial bamboo wastes

One of the biggest challenges in the region is palm and other crop waste. The results of the lack of alternatives are colloquially called “haze” and during peak burning season visibility in Kuala Lumpur is atrocious.  This is a big deal and any possible solution, no matter how small is significant.

The obvious question was who would benefit from the power expecting an answer such as offices are other small businesses but no, the answer from our business contact was Data Centers. Again, a left field answer and another mental challenge. Doing some mental math’s while listening took me back to the 1980’s in South Africa installing an IBM 3084Q and subsequent 3090 with network equipment in Old Mutual. A 308x was rated for around 40KW and assuming a PF of 1 is around 40kVA. Each rack was rated for 15A with a 20% headroom x 40 racks that is around 600A / 800kW plus ancillary draws such as cooling and others roughly pulling 2MWh in total so yes, it could be done.  

After the amazingly interesting discussion I researched AI data Center power consumption and wow! Each Nvidia DGC H100/H200 systems has 6 power supplies rated at 3.3kW or 15A per server! The 256 radix switches draw in excess of 2.5kW as well!

We then looked at who provides the best equipment in the region and the answer was clear. Vertiv!

We are now official Vertiv solutions partners with growing expertise in Vertiv Critical power and specifically the Liebert APT and SPM Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) allowing multiple inputs and regulated power output in perfectly synchronized phase angles.

We had a follow up meeting with our business connection and this time we had the surprise in hand. I would assume the business partner thought we were going to discuss something trivial on the scale of possibilities, but our conversation was insightful and exciting and the start of a new journey for My Data Sys.

Since the meeting of minds several very large projects are on the table and the Vertiv technology is unsurpassed. Our next step is to have the same discussion with Vertiv management in PJ and we hope they are as excited as us.

Please do follow our journey as we help enable green projects to add value to the substantial power requirements of Data Centers being planned and built in Malaysia starting in Sarawak.