Where digital value is stored
Flávio Marques, Senior Manager, Business Development – Global Marketing at Lightera.
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The digital value is not only stored but is also being processed and multiplied within data centers. One could say that most of our digital lives take place inside these facilities—from public services to social networks, from travel systems to banking, streaming, and everything behind the icons displayed on our phones.
Since they first became central to digital communications, data centers have continuously grown, even as different market phenomena unfolded over time. In the 1990s, they were known as Data Processing Centers (CPDs), enabling banking digitalization. In the 2000s, they remained essential despite the dot-com bubble, continuing to host all internet services. Around 2015, they were critical in consolidating the rise of cloud computing and mobility. Today, they support the tsunami of Artificial Intelligence. Whatever the next digital–social–economic phenomenon may be (the popularization of quantum computing?), data centers will be there, storing and multiplying value.
They have not operated alone for a long time. It is the interconnection between data centers that enables the cloud to function, providing transparent, continuous, and fluid communication across mobile and fixed devices. The value they store must be processed for the interested parties, who consume this vast amount of digital content in many ways.
This content is delivered to terminals and subscribers through multiservice distribution networks that transport data across cities and cellular towers, eventually reaching users via wireless networks, fiber connections, and more.
When we arrive at the core of digital content management (the data centers), we notice that the perception of value changes along the networks that connect us. Unprecedented investments are being made to accommodate the AI phenomenon, as well as the connections between these centers. As we move through the networks distributing content to its final destination, the balance between investment and maintenance becomes increasingly challenging, pressured by different market realities.
There is a need to equalize trust across the entire data network. Only then can the valuable digital content we rely on be available with the necessary quality at both ends—user and storage. A heterogeneous-quality network cannot deliver what we expect on our screens. Value lies in the entire communication journey, and it must be preserved so that our dependence on the digital universe does not turn into a nightmare.