FEATURE : ELECTRICITY 4.0
A LONG-TERM CAREER PATH REQUIRES A LOT OF INVESTMENT OF TIME AND EFFORT , AND WHEN YOU ’ VE GOT CONFLICTING RESPONSIBILITIES IT ’ S HARD .
It is well known that traditional industries such as energy and data infrastructure could benefit from more gender equality . What have been some of your experiences where you have broken the mould , or successes that can inspire future generations ?
It is hard not to notice the lack of gender balance in engineering generally .
There ’ s always the excuse that not enough women engineers graduate , that there ’ s just a smaller pool . If you do the research and the analysis , the bigger problem is the leaky pipeline .
Women drop off at critical points in their career and it happens in nearly every geography in every culture . Women are dropping off at critical junctures of their career , whether it is linked decisions around family or responsibility for ageing relatives , you find that women are not sustaining their career paths .
From your time in the energy sector , what are your impressions of how the digital infrastructure industry operates in comparison ?
One phenomenon that is obvious is the power demand from accelerated computing is near exponential .
A long-term career path requires a lot of investment of time and effort , and when you ’ ve got conflicting responsibilities it ’ s hard . I think as an industry , we need to focus more on retention of the women that we bring into the organisation rather than only focusing on the intake . That ’ s where I think Schneider Electric and its metrics are doing a great job .
We ’ ve got an ambition around our sustainability impact , which is having 50 % women in hiring , 40 % women in front line management , and 30 % women in leadership teams by 2025 . We are well on our way to meeting those targets . There is still work to do , and we need to develop more women into leadership positions . If we ’ re going to solve this issue , it is about enabling women to succeed in corporate careers .
Just six years ago , AFCOM ’ s State of the Data Center
Report recorded the average rack density at 6kW , this year ’ s report says it is now at 12kW , with the majority ( 55 %) of respondents stating that they expect further increases in the next 12 months .
That multiplies the power increase within a single rack which , when accumulated into an overall system , grows exponentially . With AI , that density could reach 100kW , as per our new reference designs .
We need to be able to serve this power from the generation side and enable the build out of all this IT infrastructure , but we have to do it in a sustainable way . Therefore , there ’ s a critical paradigm and situation in the industry today .
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