Data centers will never be obsolete.
Data centers are essential for powering the internet and storing the data and allowing access to the data and websites.
Without data centers, there would be no websites or no internet and even YouTube, Google, Cloud storage, web hosting, email etc would all cease to exist.
So data centers will always be around, as long as the internet remains around, which is likely for several years.
Although data centers are not becoming obsolete, data centers are however undergoing rapid, structural evolution to handle AI and are shifting from the traditional air cooled data center facilities to high powered liquid cooled data center environments.
And although the old data center infrastructure does face obsolescence, the global demand for data centers is actually doubling, which makes modern, adaptable data centers more critical, although not obsolete.
Whenever you access a website, email, cloud storage, YouTube etc, you're accessing a server or servers in data centers and if those data centers did not exist, the websites, cloud storage, YouTube etc would not load and not work.
So data centers will remain for years to come as long as we have internet and websites.
AI is also becoming in more demand now and the workloads of AI also require significantly more power densities, with rack capacities that are expected to jump from 36KW to up to 100KW by the year 2027, which is not all that far away.
Due to the AI workloads, it's rendering the older and lower density data centers obsolete, but data centers will remain around.
Data centers that were also built over 10 to 15 years ago, also often lack the proper infrastructure that is required for the necessary liquid cooling technology.
And instead of eliminating the large data centers, specialized, smaller data centers also known as "edge" data centers are complementing the massive hyperscale data center facilities, by providing lower latency for local AI.
And even despite the requirements for new and updated data center facilities, data centers are also expanding.
And the data center industry also requires massive investments, with roughly $170 billion dollars for new construction that was projected in 2025.
When it comes to the internet the internet is basically just data stored on a bunch of different web servers in data centers that require robust physical storage and processing.
And so while the hardware in the servers change rapidly, usually roughly every 3 to 5 years and sometimes the servers also get replaced, the demand for a physical location to hold those servers and allow public access to the servers also remains.
The focus is mainly shifting toward sustainability and adaptability, as data centers that are unable to support any high density AI chips will also fall behind.