In the cover feature of the last magazine, Global Editor Peter Judge looked at the lifecycle of a data center - how it is born, how it lives, and how it will die.

Some found this depressing, after all, death can be a terrifying concept - a dark, unyielding force inevitably coming for us all. But there is hope.

Rebirth

Buildings which have come to the end of their natural life have been brought back from the dead and turned into data centers, rejuvenating sites that were heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

Structures designed for bygone eras have been modernized and made part of the world’s digital infrastructure. With print media’s tragic decline, printing presses have fallen into disuse - but luckily, data centers are here to save the day.

Both QTS and DuPont Fabros have set up inside now-silent newspaper facilities, perhaps to host modern news publications.

Elsewhere, Apple has reused a factory that once hoped to make iPhone screens, Welsh data center NGD is in a former electronics fab and a Motorola CRT television plant is due to become a Digital Realty data center. Abandoned since 1976, the 63-year old facility could now live to 100. Google, meanwhile, is adapting a power station in Alabama.

But what about data centers when they die? It is too soon to tell what the next wave of architects and builders will make with the remnants of the early Information Age, but we can predict which ones will survive extinction by noting what it took for older structures to survive their own industry’s cull.

Robust, adaptable and intelligently located buildings have persevered. But so too have those whose beauty repels the blunt trauma of a sledgehammer.

As we previously explored, some data centers are indeed beautiful. Maybe these buildings will live to fight another day.

A version of this opinion appeared in the June/July issue of DCD Magazine. The August/September issue is out very soon - be sure to subscribe now.