Comparing Small, Medium & Mega Data Center Typologies to Identify Design Trade-Offs for Varying Operational Requirements

Data center scale fundamentally reshapes design complexity, infrastructure strategy, and commercial risk. What works for a smaller regional facility often breaks down at mega-campus scale, where utility coordination, phasing, land economics, and reliability expectations intensify. This workshop will examine how design priorities shift across small, medium, and mega typologies, helping teams understand where trade-offs emerge and how to align infrastructure decisions with operational requirements, capital strategy, and long-term scalability.

  • Breaking down mechanical plant configurations across small, medium, and mega data centers to understand how scale influences cooling architecture, redundancy strategies, and system complexity
  • Assessing how facility size impacts chilled water plant sizing, heat rejection strategies, and phasing of mechanical infrastructure as capacity expands
  • Evaluating cooling design trade-offs around water usage, footprint, and redundancy requirements to balance thermal resilience against capital cost and site constraints