Data Center Facility

The Data Center Facility Project develops open, collaborative designs that meet the ever-increasing demands of IT hardware while enhancing efficiency and sustainability. Its scope covers everything from power and cooling solutions to facility operations, geared toward modular, scalable, and environmentally friendly data center environments. Work focuses on five functional areas: data center facility power, facility cooling, IT space layout and design, facility monitoring and control, and facility operations.

Data Center Facility

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Steering Committee Representative

Madhusudan Iyengar

Project Leads

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About This Project

Welcome to the Data Center Facility Project at the Open Compute Project. Here, we’re redefining what’s possible in the world of data center infrastructure by focusing on open, collaborative designs that meet the ever-increasing demands of IT hardware while enhancing efficiency and sustainability. Our scope covers everything from power and cooling solutions to facility operations, all geared toward creating modular, scalable, and environmentally friendly data center environments.

We invite you to join us on this journey. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to the world of data centers, your insights and contributions can help shape the future of open, innovative facility design. Dive in and be part of building the next generation of data center infrastructure with us!

Scope

The Data Center Facility Project will focus its efforts in 5 functional areas of the data center:

  • Data Center Facility Power
  • Data Center Facility Cooling
  • IT Space Layout and Design
  • Data Center Facility Monitoring and Control
  • Data Center Facilities Operation

Resources

Disclaimer: Please do not submit any confidential information to the Project Community. All presentation materials, proposals, meeting minutes and/or supporting documents are published by OCP and are open to the public in accordance to OCP’s Bylaws and IP Policy. This can be found on the OCP Policies page. If you have any questions please contact OCP.

Welcome to the OCP Data Center Facility Project. This Project is open to the public and we welcome all those who would like to be involved.

Documents

  • Charter – OCP Presentation Template

OCP Marketplace

Regular Project Calls

This project meets on the third Wednesday of every month at 10:30am EST – 9:30am CST/3:30pm GMT (Please check the call calendar).

Meeting Link: https://opencompute-org.zoom.us/j/83920050260?pwd=aS8xT1lDWHE1Ny9yOEozVnp2TXR3QT09

Meeting ID: 839 2005 0260

Meeting Passcode: 562201

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Recordings from Past Calls

Data Center Facility calendar

Related Details

Contributions

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Sub-Projects

Data Center Telemetry

The Data Center Telemetry Sub-Project, part of the OCP Data Center Facility Project, addresses a pivotal industry challenge: reconciling explosive growth with aggressive efficiency and sustainability mandates. Telemetry, the automated collection and analysis of power, thermal, and mechanical metrics, gives operators visibility for proactive fault detection, cooling optimization toward better PUE and WUE, and regulatory compliance, while helping customers profile workloads and improve performance per watt. Delivering it means securely sharing data from operators’ building management and power monitoring systems with tenants’ enterprise networks. Life safety system telemetry is out of scope.

DC Automation

The DC Automation Sub-Project under the OCP Data Center Facility Project was formed to promote, support, and guide development of physical automation solutions for data centers. It aims to use automation technologies to boost physical operation efficiency and safety in data centers and supporting infrastructure. The sub-project provides direction on known industry challenges and engages industry partners to develop technology roadmaps aimed at safer, more efficient operations, leveraging OCP's unique combination of hyperscale influence, vendors, and projects to accelerate the industry's automation goals. A formal scope statement has not yet been published; it will be added in the near future.

Energy

The Energy Sub-Project of the OCP Data Center Facility Project addresses energy availability, now the primary constraint on new infrastructure deployments. Energy-related work already spans several OCP initiatives but has been fragmented; this sub-project unifies it under one focal point, coordinating grid interaction, energy generation, energy storage, power distribution, renewable integration, and energy optimization while collaborating with existing OCP projects to avoid duplication. Two workstreams anchor the effort: Energy Storage Systems, covering ESS requirements, architectures, and safety for data center facilities, and Energy Generation, covering on-site and standby generation.

Fire Protection for AI/ML Data Centers

Fire Protection for AI/ML Data Centers is a Sub-Project under the OCP Data Center Facility Project, which develops open designs for power, cooling, and facility operations in modular, scalable, and sustainable data centers. Details about the sub-project’s mission, scope, leadership, and ways to get involved will be added in the near future.

Modular Data Center

The Modular Data Center (MDC) Sub-Project, part of the OCP Data Center Facility Project, collaborates on the design and use of modular solutions optimized for OCP hardware, whose maintainability and scalability advantages are magnified in a modular environment. Participants develop solutions that enable OCP hardware in power, cooling, IT, and all-in-one modules. Primary interests include faster data center deployment, lower environmental impact from construction, and better power and cooling efficiency. A key contribution is simplifying OCP hardware use for customers outside the hyperscale sector by sizing down form factors and creating scalable infrastructure systems.

OCP Ready™ Data Center Recognition Program

The OCP Ready™ Data Center Recognition Program, a sub-project of the OCP Data Center Facility Project, recognizes colocation data centers that complete a detailed self-assessment against rigorous hyperscale-driven requirements covering logistics, site access, security, base building infrastructure, and network connectivity. Two self-certifications are available: OCP Ready™ v2 for Hyperscale, for facilities serving hyperscale operators at various stages of development, and OCP Ready™ v1, for colocation facilities aligned with OCP best practices and hardware. After assessment and approval by the DCF Project Team and OCP Foundation, certified data centers receive OCP Ready™ recognition and are listed on the OCP Marketplace.

Power Distribution

The Power Distribution Sub-Project of the OCP Data Center Facility Project aims to increase power density and enable next-generation compute by moving data center infrastructure to Low Voltage Direct Current (LVDC, ≤1500VDC) distribution. The work focuses on reducing conversion losses, improving reliability, and supporting future scalability, integrating direct current from medium-voltage conversion through LVDC distribution while meeting safety and operational standards. Its scope includes LVDC evolution and best practices, alignment with industry alliances, transition timelines, energy storage systems, DC rack power architecture, and protection interfaces. MVDC architectures and in-rack components are out of scope.

Sustainability

The DCF Sustainability Sub-Project aligns the OCP Data Center Facility Project with OCP's fifth tenet, sustainability. While OCP's IT-focused Sustainability Project targets decarbonization of IT infrastructure, this sub-project focuses on decarbonizing the non-IT aspects of the data center. It engages industry partners to develop technology roadmaps and guidelines that support net-zero carbon goals through innovation and collaboration in products and technologies. In-scope work covers non-IT facility hardware, power, water, GHG emissions, and supply chain, along with specifications, guidelines, and metrics guidance, spanning technologies like fuel cells, batteries, energy storage, PV cells, green hydrogen, e-fuels, and renewable diesel. Developing new sustainability metrics is out of scope.

Technology Cooling System Pipe Distribution

Technology Cooling System (TCS) Pipe Distribution is an OCP Workstream focused on the design, delivery, and selection of modular TCS pipe distribution for cloud-scale data centers. The workstream has published its guidance document, Modular TCS @ CloudScale Design, Delivery, Selection Guidance, a white paper available in the OCP document library.