DCD Zero Downtime: The Bi-Weekly Data Center Show

Mobile devices require networks to make them function, and these networks are often deployed in places most people wouldn’t dare to visit, such as telecom towers.

Some can be found thousands of miles high, but for tower contractors, it’s their everyday job, and across all sorts of weather conditions.

Tommy Schuch, a former tower contractor and now documentary maker and founder of Climber Protection Group, explains the risks of the job to DCD, and why the sector needs a shake-up to protect those risking their lives. Is this the most dangerous job in the world?

With the deployment of 4G and 5G services still an important focus for US carriers, the need for telecoms infrastructure to house this equipment couldn’t be greater, which presents an opportunity for infrastructure companies such as Palistar Capital-backed Symphony Towers Infrastructure.

DCD caught up with David Bacino, CEO, Symphony Towers Infrastructure, to discuss his first few months in the role, opportunities in the market, and plans for 2026.  Update: After this episode was published, Bacino announced he is set to transition from his role as CEO to that of vice chairman.

Anyone who has entered a data center will be familiar with the upright rack design that has become standard in data halls around the world.

But while piling up the “pizza boxes” has served the industry well for decades, the advent of liquid cooling systems, developed to meet the thermal needs of advanced chips, means a new approach may be needed.

Cooling firm Air2O is thinking outside the (pizza) box, and has come up with a modular, stackable design for data center racks, which it says can improve cooling efficiency.

On this episode, DCD speaks to Air2O’s Iggy Kogan about the new design, dubbed the High Thermal Density Air-Cooled Rack Assembly.

The UK is calling time on its copper networks, and thousands of telephone exchanges across the UK are set to be closed in the coming years.

The end of an era, some of these buildings date back around 100 years or more. If recent history is anything to go by, many will be turned into residential buildings.

Lisa Kinch, a historic places adviser for Historic England and associate lecturer at the Manchester School of Architecture, did her PhD research on telephone exchanges in the UK, giving her a unique view on these buildings and their historical context.

We discuss her research and the unique place the UK's telephone exchanges have in the country's architectural history.

While critical infrastructure has always been the backbone of the digital landscape, the recent data center boom has caused more people than ever before to become aware of the industry and consider the career opportunities it might have to offer.

However, like the tech industry writ large, there’s a perception amongst some outside of the critical infrastructure sector that its workforce lacks diversity and therefore isn't an industry in which they could excel professionally.

In this episode, Lizzy McDowell, director of marketing, Kao Data, tries to dispel some of the myths about the industry and discusses the importance of promoting diversity within the data center sector and why there’s never been a better time to consider a career in critical infrastructure.

DCD speaks to Dr. Tim Gregory, nuclear scientist at Sellafield, the UK's national nuclear laboratory, and author of the best-selling book Going Nuclear, about the history of nuclear power, how it actually works, and whether it can play a key role in powering the growth of AI both in the UK and further afield.

This episode is a bit different.

With the festive period officially peaking, DCD decided to change tack and instead give you a "year in review," where we talk about our favorite stories from 2025.

Join Charlotte Trueman, Zachary Skidmore, Georgia Butler, and Paul Lipscombe as they cover their respective beats.

We hope you enjoy it - and happy holidays!

With data centers in space all the rage, we chat with Sophia Space's Cyrill Glockner about the company's step-by-step approach to putting compute in orbit.

The UK wants more data centers. The government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, announced in January, is driving operators to look outside of Greater London. We talk to Lee Myall, CEO of Neos Networks – a B2B fiber provider in the UK – about the state of the UK’s connectivity infrastructure, what kind of delays are faced by data center operators in the country, and the impact of AI workloads on fiber buildouts.

At DCD, we frequently cover stories about data centers getting funding, mergers and acquisitions, and investment in general. But we rarely get to talk to the investment bankers about it. 

In this episode, we discuss the current financial market in the data center industry - the trends Pryor is seeing, and the inevitability of the AI bubble. Tune it to hear what an investment banker focused on the technology sector thinks of the current climate.