No subject

itself, and its cooling requirements, which is, in part, what Microsoft is
doing next, with its Gen 4 data center in Dublin. One section of the facility
consists of a series of containers, essentially parked and stacked amid other
modular equipment — with no roof or walls. It will use outside air for
cooling. On our drive to Tukwila, Manos gestured to an electrical substation,
a collection of transformers grouped behind a chain-link fence. “We’re at the
beginning of the information utility,” he said. “The past is big monolithic
buildings. The future looks more like a substation — the data center
represents the information substation of tomorrow.”

Tom Vanderbilt is the author of “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and
What It Says About Us).”