Military data centres form key cog in future of war strategy

Data centres have become part of the fabric of everyday life: storing and processing our internet data, ensuring data is available without delay from our smart devices, and powering organisations' digital environments and experiences. The technological nature of warfare today means data centres' significance has extended to the battlefield.

Still, most people think of data centres as big buildings with white halls that consume a lot of energy - but that's just one type. More relevant to the battlefield are portable edge data centres 'in a box' that range from the size of a small refrigerator to a 20-foot container.

These modular pieces of tech infrastructure use similar but compacted technology to operate. They can be designed to be rugged, relatively lightweight, and easily transportable to keep up with troops on the move.

Latency is one of the key reasons we need this infrastructure. Data centres process functions such as drone defence and attack actions and transmit data between squadrons. Even though data travels at the speed of light, if those functions are processed via a data centre on home soil - potentially thousands of kilometres away - the few microseconds lost to latency could have a major impact on the result of those decisions.

Seconds and even milliseconds matter on the battlefield, and having compact data centres where the action takes place - at the 'edge' - means those IT functions are processed at the same time a decision is made. Pro gamers - not just of war games - understand this. Many use edge data centres as part of their gaming setups to minimise latency and win.

There are other practical benefits to beating latency, too. As the level of applications such as high-resolution video, automated robots and big data in warfare is enhanced, it makes sense to process the bulk of that activity at the edge. Otherwise, we could see traffic jams and avoidably high costs as data channels between military operations and homebase are clogged.

Befitting of a military setting, edge data centres also need backup. One can suffer an outage or even be destroyed. Nearby but not in the exact same vicinity, it needs a backup data centre ready to take over when needed.

Cooling is another important consideration - the battlefield is an environment that can heat up quickly, and data centres fail without adequate cooling built in. We're likely to see immersion cooling - which involves submerging hardware in mineral oil - to efficiently cool it. This technique allows data centres to operate in temperatures up to around 50°C, as opposed to around 35°C for air cooling.

The nature of how modern warfare works is an important consideration too - while Russia's invasion of Ukraine manifested the devastating impact and imagery akin to previous conflicts, we've also seen cyber warfare play out between Russia, the Ukraine and its allies. The IT Army of Ukraine was created one day after Russia invaded Ukraine to fight against the digital intrusion of Ukrainian information and cyberspace, a telling sign of the relevance of cyber activity in today and tomorrow's warfare.

Data centres are vital in the context of cybercrime - firstly, they're a popular target as when they're taken offline, everything connected to them is too. Secondly, they're needed to execute cybersecurity defence and attack operations.

Edge data centres have the capacity to operate in a closed loop disconnected from any networks via which attacks might come. The flip side to that disconnect is that other data centres plugged into the network will need to be used to launch cyber attacks - an ecosystem mindset is needed.

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This isn't just about new infrastructure in the battlefield, data centres are fast becoming one of the most important foundations to a new kind of warfare. Like it or not, we'll see more use of robotics and other advanced technologies in the theatre of war. Having the right infrastructure to power it is as important as the tech itself.

Edge use cases will continue to expand as they have in the civilian world, potentially enabling robotic surgery in the field, transport and logistics, and advanced asset management.

There will no doubt be other uses that come to the foray, but one thing is certain - as defence becomes more digitised, data centres are going to play a much larger role in who has the edge on the battlefield.