New York City-based Edged Energy is opening a new carbon and water neutral data center in Irving. Known as Edged Dallas, the facility will be built for AI workloads and equipped with advanced waterless cooling and energy systems. Edged has almost a dozen new data centers operating or under construction across Europe and North America.
Edged Dallas, which will produce 24 megawatts of critical capacity, is expected to save nearly 95 million gallons of water each year compared to conventional data centers.
“Sustainability is at the core of our platform. It is why our data centers are uniquely optimized for energy efficiency and water conservation,” Edged CEO Bryant Farland said. “We are excited to be partnering with the Irving Economic Development Partnership and City of Irving, a thriving tech hub that shares our commitment to innovation and advancing technology for positive impact. Together, we are delivering world-class connectivity and future-proof solutions to support the region’s booming digital economy.”
Edged Dallas will be outfitted with the ThermalWorks waterless cooling system, designed to support the demands of generative AI. The modular system supports densities of up to 70 kW per rack with air cooling and 200 kW per rack. This technology will help Edged reduce energy overhead by 74 percent.
“We are very excited to welcome Edged Dallas to Irving,” Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer said. “Our city has all the right elements to be a world-class destination for vital data infrastructure. Irving’s common-sense approach to regulations and taxes, our large and talented workforce and existing physical infrastructure links make us well positioned to attract companies seeking to fill the need for computing horsepower created by artificial intelligence and other applications. We are especially pleased this project will be in South Irving, and we hope it will catalyze similar successful developments in the area going forward.”
Texas has emerged as a hub for data centers. According to Cushman & Wakefield, Dallas ended 2023 with a total data center absorption of 386.12 megawatts. Shell inventory was more than 1.7 million square feet, total supply was 4.5 million square feet, available space was just 177,000 square feet, and more than 1.4 million square feet were under construction. The market is only set to grow as Oncor has committed to a multibillion-dollar capital expenditure plan to bring additional power infrastructure to the region.
o9 Solutions to Expand Collaboration with Microsoft Through Azure OpenAI Service
AI software platform provider o9 Solutions is expanding its collaboration with Microsoft by integrating Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service applications with the o9 Digital Brain to improve the platform’s AI planning capabilities. Azure OpenAI Service provides language models that can assist in content generation, summarization, image understanding, and more. o9’s Digital Brain can digitize and connect knowledge from platforms like Microsoft Outlook email, Word documents, PowerPoint slides, Teams chat systems into its planner.
By utilizing Azure OpenAI Service’s embeddings, o9 enhances the ability to conduct semantic searches, ensuring more accurate and relevant results.
“As companies look to continuously improve their supply chain operations and make processes more efficient, generative AI technologies and APIs will allow planning teams to leverage vast amounts of domain knowledge to make more informed business decisions in real-time,” o9 Solutions CEO Chakri Gottemukkal said. “We’re very excited to collaborate with Microsoft and its Azure OpenAI Service offering to open new possibilities in streamlining supply chain processes and breaking down siloed knowledge transfer capabilities for our joint customers.”
Additionally, the project is improving Azure OpenAI Service’s chat-completion, allowing for more efficient and intelligent automation. This added functionality allows supply chain planners to apply the o9 Digital Brain’s knowledge to inform real time decision-making. For example, when a user enters a question, the system will determine whether it requires a knowledge-based response or data retrieval. The system uses a retrieval augmented generation model to find information that fits within the question’s parameters, responds to the user, and can also prompt a user to determine what next steps should be taken. As the system gathers more knowledge and refines its responses, it can provide insights more efficiently while enabling automated workflows.
Korean Fried Chicken Chain Bonchon Continues Expansion Across U.S. with More Locations
Coming off the heels of opening four new locations in the first quarter of 2024, Dallas-based Korean fried chicken chain Bonchon plans to open 20 more locations in the United States “We are on course to smash the record we set last year for deals signed,” Bronchon U.S. CEO Suzie Tsai said. “Our flexible store formats combined with our simplified kitchen and operational ease are extremely attractive to individuals exploring a restaurant franchise.”
Founded in Busan, South Korea, in 2002, the franchise opened in the United States in 2006. The franchise plans to expand to several new markets in 2024, including Long Island and Staten Island, Huntsville, Alabama, and Tucson, Arizona. It currently has more than 430 restaurants across nine countries including Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar, France, Vietnam, and the U.S.
“While Bonchon currently has locations in more than 25 states across the country, the brand is actively seeking franchise partners in markets including Georgia, Southern California, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Southern Florida, and Texas,” Amanda Millikan, SVP of development at Bonchon said.
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