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Data centres are integral to delivering on the most exciting promises of modern tech, from housing “the cloud” and supporting media streaming to providing a foundation for our AI future. But for them to do what they need to do, they need to be as boringly predictable as possible. That’s the balance Dame Dawn Childs has had to strike as the CEO of Pure Data Centres Group.
Luckily, she has the CV to suit. After studying mechanical engineering at the University of Bath, she joined the Royal Air Force, becoming the service’s deputy chief air engineer. Since leaving in 2012 she has held senior engineering and transformation roles at organisations including Gatwick Airport, the National Grid, and Merlin Entertainments, where she was the firm’s group engineering director – or, as she might put it, delivering fun while ensuring things are as boring as possible. In the following interview, edited for length and clarity, Childs discusses digital sovereignty, international conflict, and why the industry needs to think much harder about sustainability.
Excitement should be the last thing on the agenda when it comes to data centres – and that’s a good thing, argues Dame Dawn Childs. (Photo: Pure Data Centres)A year ago, the data centre industry was fretting about the impact of AI and shortages of both GPUs and power. What’s happened since then?
The regulatory landscape has moved on significantly. There’s a lot of talk about sovereign AI and not really much collaboration, or sufficient collaboration with the industry, to understand what the realisation of that is, or what it means for each nation. What is it that [constitutes] ‘sovereign data’? Do they have new datasets that they want to put into these language models? Or are they literally just wanting to have GPUs-as-a-service for enterprises within their nations to use? It’s not clear what their requirements are. I think that has made the wicked problem of building data centres slightly worse.
The Gulf region is working harder, I think, to make it a reality. They’re putting government funding behind it, and they have more power availability, more land availability. They’re thinking about what sort of services they need and also thinking about how their governments should be using AI. So, they’re putting the use cases forward, and thinking, ‘What is it we can do with AI that will put us ahead and make us a leader?’
Is the geopolitical landscape more of a concern than a year ago?
The geopolitical landscape in terms of global conflict and so on hasn’t changed significantly. However, the tariffs have overlaid a very different lens, which also leads directly into some of the more military and defence aspects. Previously, you could divorce business from defence. But now, actually, the tariffs create a different form of interstate conflict. So, it’s almost like a Cold War written differently.
Has the designation of data centres in the UK as critical national infrastructure affected your outlook? How does it factor into your planning?
I do think that we’ve reached an inflection point in our thinking around critical national data sets and cybersecurity. That broader piece was covered in the Strategic Defence Review. Thinking about the lethal force, not just in terms of standard weaponry, but also thinking about digital weaponry.
If you look at the fighting landscape, thinking about where military data is housed and ensuring that we stay cyber-secure as a nation, and ensuring that our national data sets stay cyber-secure, and the digital dimension to warfighting, that’s all incredibly important. And I think the data centre industry will lean into that.
Your background spans the RAF and theme parks, airports, and data centres. What’s most exciting? What gives you the most adrenaline?
Anything that is defined as ‘critical,’ whether it’s the military, warfighting, airports or rollercoasters or even the National Grid or data centres, all have an element of that operational challenge.
And for me, [it’s about] figuring out how you meet operational challenges, and importantly, how you employ and work with brilliant people and mobilise them to work for those challenges.
Everybody, in some bizarre way, loves an “incident” because, if there’s such a thing, then you can all run around like lunatics. I’d prefer to stay away from that sort of adrenaline and make sure that actually delivering this infrastructure and operating it almost becomes quite boring. Because if it’s boring, then it’s running well, and then you can focus on making it better.
What do we need to talk about more when it comes to data centres?
We have to find a way through sustainability in the round. If you think about the data proliferation we now have in the era of AI, all you need is Apple to roll out another facial recognition thing and, suddenly, you double the data centre requirement overnight.
If we don’t figure out how to better deliver data centre infrastructure, it will be unsustainable at a point in time which isn’t too far away in the future. There won’t be enough power or the ability to deliver enough compute at speed.
There is a lot of brain capacity devoted to solving these challenges across both our sector and the energy sector. Will it deliver results in time? I think we need this blend of innovation on all fronts to help us move at the pace that’s required.
