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Data Center Bust, Boom, Bust, Boom….
Data centers in colleges and universities are crucial for supporting the extensive technological infrastructure required for modern education and research. These centers house critical servers and storage systems that manage vast amounts of data, ensuring reliable access to academic resources, administrative applications, and communication networks. They enable the secure storage and processing of sensitive information, including student records, faculty research, and institutional data.
Uptime Institute Tier Classification
Moreover, data centers facilitate advanced research by providing the computational power needed for data-intensive studies in fields like bioinformatics, climate science, and artificial intelligence. They support virtual learning environments and online course management systems, essential for the increasingly prevalent hybrid and online education models. Efficient data centers also contribute to campus sustainability goals by optimizing energy use through modern, eco-friendly technologies.
ANSI/TIA 942 Data Center Infrastructure Standard
Additionally, robust data center infrastructure enhances the university’s ability to attract top-tier faculty and students by demonstrating a commitment to cutting-edge technology and resources. They also play a vital role in disaster recovery and business continuity, ensuring that educational and administrative functions can resume quickly after disruptions. Overall, data centers are integral to the academic mission, operational efficiency, and strategic growth of colleges and universities.
Standards distinguish meaningful patterns from imagined ones.
We have followed development of the technical standards that govern the success of these “installations” since 1993; sometimes nudging technical committees — NFPA, IEEE, ASHRAE, BICSI and UL. The topic is vast and runs fast so today we will review, and perhaps respond to, the public consultations that are posted on a near-daily basis. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
Related:
Oakland University examining feasibility of hosting data center on campus
University of Virginia — Fontaine Research Data Center
Ernst & Young LLP: Why there is no silver bullet for data center financing
Power Management For Data Centers Challenges And Opportunities
Critical Operations Power Systems
The original University of Michigan codes and standards enterprise advocated actively in Article 708 Critical Operations Power Systems (COPS) of the National Electrical Code (NEC) because of the elevated likelihood that the education facility industry managed assets that were likely candidates for designation critical operations areas by emergency management authorities.
Because the NEC is incorporated by reference into most state and local electrical safety laws, it saw the possibility that some colleges and universities — particularly large research universities with independent power plants, telecommunications systems and large hospitals — would be on the receiving end of an unfunded mandate. Many education facilities are identified by the Federal Emergency Management Association as community storm shelters, for example.
As managers of publicly owned assets, University of Michigan Plant Operations had no objection to rising to the challenge of using publicly owned education facilities for emergency preparedness and disaster recovery operations; only that meeting the power system reliability requirements to the emergency management command centers would likely cost more than anyone imagined — especially at the University Hospital and the Public Safety Department facilities. Budgets would have to be prepared to make critical operations power systems (COPS) resistant to fire and flood damages; for example.
Collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Industrial Applications Society began shortly after the release of the 2007 NEC. Engineering studies were undertaken, papers were published (see links below) and the inspiration for the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee developed to provide a gathering place for power, telecommunication and energy professionals to discover and promulgate leading practice. That committee is now formally a part of IEEE and collaborates with IAS/PES JTCC assigned the task of harmonizing NFPA and IEEE electrical safety and sustainability consensus documents (codes, standards, guidelines and recommended practices.
Transcripts of 2029 Revision:
Not posted yet as of October 28, 2026
Transcripts of 2026 Revision:
https://t.co/chd9RJVc7G
print(“Disaster”) pic.twitter.com/Lu6Dw3bARq— Standards Michigan (@StandardsMich) November 15, 2021
The transcript of NEC Code Making Panel 13 — the committee that revises COPS Article 708 every three years — is linked below:
NEC CMP-13 First Draft Balloting
NEC CMP-13 Second Draft Balloting
The 2023 Edition of the National Electrical Code does not contain revisions that affect #TotalCostofOwnership — only refinement of wiring installation practices when COPS are built integral to an existing building that will likely raise cost. There are several dissenting comments to this effect and they all dissent because of cost. Familiar battles over overcurrent coordination persist.
Our papers and proposals regarding Article 708 track a concern for power system reliability — and the lack of power — as an inherent safety hazard. These proposals are routinely rejected by incumbent stakeholders on NEC technical panels who do not agree that lack of power is a safety hazard. Even if lack of power is not a safety hazard, reliability requirements do not belong in an electrical wiring installation code developed largely by electricians and fire safety inspectors. The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee (IEEE E&H) maintains a database on campus power outages; similar to the database used by the IEEE 1366 committees that develop reliability indices to enlighten public utility reliability regulations.
Public input on the 2026 revision to the NEC will be received until September 7th. We have reserved a workspace for our priorities in the link below:
Colleagues: Robert Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey
LEARN MORE:
Consuting-Specifying Engineer | Risk Assessments for Critical Operations Power Systems
Electrical Construction & Maintenance | Critical Operations Power Systems
Facilities Manager | Critical Operations Power Systems: The Generator in Your Backyard
“Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”
A Proposed Data Center Campus for Wisconsin Rapids
The rapid growth of data centers presents genuine challenges to electric power systems: very large concentrated loads, accelerated interconnection schedules, new transmission requirements and concern over who ultimately pays for the necessary infrastructure. These problems deserve careful attention, but they are fundamentally engineering problems — and therefore problems capable of engineering solutions.
Electrical power systems have repeatedly adapted to new classes of load. Electrification of industry, air conditioning, electric heating and large computing facilities each altered planning assumptions in their time. Data centers will do the same.
Power engineers are already developing better methods for load forecasting, staged interconnection, demand response, energy storage, on-site generation and microgrids. Data centers themselves can become more flexible loads, reducing consumption during stressed grid conditions rather than operating continuously at maximum demand. Improved transmission planning, advanced protection and controls and better coordination between utilities, system operators and large customers will further reduce adverse effects.
The present difficulties should therefore not be mistaken for permanent conditions. Engineering practice evolves when operating experience reveals new constraints. The extraordinary concentration of electrical demand created by artificial intelligence will test the grid, but it will also accelerate improvements in how large loads are designed, connected, controlled and supplied.
How Stupid Would It Be to Put Data Centers in Space?
Riding the orbital data center wave
SpaceX and Google Are in Talks to Launch Data Centers in Orbit
Community Impact Strategies for Data Centers
1. Build vertically — Stack rack “white space” across three to five floors, including one or two below grade, to reduce building footprint and land consumption.
2. Make architecture an asset — Treat the exterior as an architectural statement appropriate to its community rather than as an anonymous industrial enclosure.
3. Support municipal infrastructure — Design electrical and standby-generation capacity to support critical municipal loads, including water and wastewater systems during major regional contingencies.
4. Co-locate emergency management functions — Provide space and resilient infrastructure for local or regional emergency management operations.
5. Provide community swing space — Incorporate adaptable space that can support sports, recreation and other community uses when not required for primary facility operations.
A data center need not be only a data center.A very large, extraordinarily well-powered and resilient building can return some of that resilience to the community hosting it.
Electricity
Natural Gas
Traffic
Water
Noise
Taxation
Security
Relata:
Dr. Gad Saad Named Global Ambassador for The Northwood Idea and Visiting Professor
Gad Saad (Northwood University Michigan) & Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto) discuss the intellectual intransigence in education settlements
“The Halloween Problem” | Recursive Self-Improvement
A well-intentioned query and the Halloween Problem
Abstract: The author’s description of the Halloween Problem demonstrates the role of cautionary tales in the history of computing. The Halloween Problem emerged in the context of structured query language optimization in relational database research. Normally, a query optimizer works by measuring system calls and paging requests and applying heuristics to the entire access path tree. Query optimization was one of the most challenging tasks facing System R researchers at IBM. These experiments with query optimization form the milieu in which the Halloween Problem emerged.
The Halloween Problem arose in early database systems when an operation changed the very data being used to determine what should happen next, allowing altered records to re-enter the decision process. The problem offers a useful analogy for increasingly capable artificial intelligence. An autonomous system may observe its environment, act upon it, change the conditions it subsequently observes and then act again. At the frontier lies recursive self-improvement: systems capable of modifying their own software, tools or decision processes. The enduring engineering question is deceptively simple: What happens when a system can change the conditions governing its own decisions?
Relata:
mac ‘n’ cheese
Health 400 | OB-GYN
National Center for Health Statistics: Birth Data Files
From Cheerleader & Footballer To Pregnant at 15
Jordan Peterson: Accidental Childlessness, The Epidemic That Dare Not Speak Its Name
REDDIT: An estimated 1/3 of all GenZ were aborted
Today we break down the stack of regulations, codes, standards and open-source literature governing the safety and sustainability of university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery facilities. Because of the complexity of the topic we break down our coverage:
Health 200. Survey of all relevant codes, standards, guidelines and recommended practices for healthcare settings.
Health 400. All of the above with special consideration needed for obstetrics, gynecological and neonatal clinical practice and research.
We limit our interest to systems — water, power, telecommunication and security; for example — that are unique to campus-configured, city-within-city risk aggregations. Electrotechnologies (voltage stability, static electricity control, radio-interference, etc.) in these enterprises are subtle, complex and high risk. Sample titles from legacy best practice literature in this domain are listed below:
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Levels of Maternal Care
Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services standards for maternal safety
Since our interest lies in the habitable spaces for these enterprises we usually start with a scan of the following titles:
International Building Code Section 407 (Institutional Group I-2) identifies requirements specific to healthcare settings, covering aspects such as fire safety, means of egress, and smoke compartments. Maternity and obstetric facilities within hospitals fall under this classification.
K-TAG Matrix for Healthcare Facilities
NFPA 70 National Electrical Code Article 517
NFPA 99 Healthcare Facilities Code
NFPA 101 Life Safety Code Chapters 18 & 19
ASHRAE 170 Ventilation of Healthcare Facilities
Relevant Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers research
Towards Deeper Neural Networks for Neonatal Seizure Detection
A System to Provide Primary Maternity Healthcare Services in Developing Countries
Deep Learning for Continuous Electronic Fetal Monitoring in Labor
Reorganizing of University Hospital of Oran’s operating theatre: Simulation approach
Finally, we collaborate with the IEEE E&H Committee on the following IEC committee projects from IEC/TC 62 Electrical equipment in medical practice:
– Common aspects of electrical equipment used in diagnostic imaging equipment
– Equipment for radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and radiation dosimetry
– Electromedical equipment for neonatal care
More
A relatively new publisher of related standards is the Facility Guidelines Institute. We are monitoring its catalog and its processes. The healthcare facility industry is likely large enough for another non-profit but we have yet to see meaningful leading practice discovery and promulgation that is unrelated to the literature that is already out there.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
Health care cost as percentage of Gross Domestic Product for six representative nations.
Association of Academic Health Centers
International Conference on Harmonization: The ICH guidelines provide guidance on the development of pharmaceuticals and related substances, including clinical trials, drug safety, and efficacy.
Animal Welfare Act and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
Good Laboratory Practice: GLP is a set of principles that ensure the quality and integrity of non-clinical laboratory studies. It ensures that data generated from non-clinical laboratory studies are reliable, valid, and accurate.
International Code Council Representation of Interests
University of Chicago
In the early to mid-1900s, some US colleges used orphaned babies in home economics programs to teach child-rearing skills
These children were referred to as "practice babies" pic.twitter.com/FZCkeu0p2m
— UberFacts (@UberFacts) August 17, 2023
👩⚕️👩🎓 Warmest congratulations to UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems’ Higher Diploma in Midwifery group (2022-2024), who have officially completed their 18-month programme to become registered midwives 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/hixD1gT1no
— University College Dublin (@ucddublin) March 7, 2024
Apples Around the Clock
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Aaron Copland “Our Town”
Azusa Pacific University Symphony Orchestra | Susanna Cervantes, Graduate Conductor
Recorded Nov. 10, 2018 at the Haugh Performing Arts Center, Glendora CA
Copland wrote the score to the film version of Thornton Wilder’s play in 1940. Comparable to Copland’s other orchestral suite, Appalachian Spring, Our Town is smaller in scale, but holds the same traditional Copland characteristics: the sunrise wake up call in the beginning, the call and response, exploiting the reflective quality of the woodwinds, brass chorales, and the desperately aching sounds of the strings.
He explained, “For the film version, they were counting on the music to translate the transcendental aspects of the story. I tried for clean and clear sounds and in general used straight-forward harmonies and rhythms that would project the serenity and sense of security of the story.” It is dedicated to Leonard Bernstein.
Su Jin Susanna Cervantes is professional freelancer actively working in the greater Los Angeles area. As a cellist, Susanna has played in multiple ensembles such as Hollywood Youth Orchestra, USC Thornton Symphony, and APU Symphony Orchestra.
She has also performed in multiple chamber groups performing works by Barber, Brahms, Borodin, Franck, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, and many more. She has performed in masterclasses with Daniel Hoffman, Lynn Harrell, and Alisa Weilerstein. In addition, she frequents in collaboration with singer-songwriters such as Sleeping At Last, whose hits are featured on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy; grammy-nominated artist, Michelle Bloom; British Christian singer-songwriter, Matt Redman; and singer/actress, Jackie Tohn.
Susanna is an academic instructor at Orange County School of Arts, teaching String Literature and Music History. She is also a strings coach for the Symphony Orchestra at San Marino High School. Since 2011, Susanna has been a pianist and a music associate at First Baptist Church of Glendale, facilitating services and contracting musicians for the church. Susanna has been teaching cello privately throughout Southern California since 2010.
Susanna has received her BM in Cello Performance from Azusa Pacific University, and is currently studying with Professor Christopher Russell at Azusa Pacific University and will receive her MM in Instrumental Conducting in May of 2019.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
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