Schneider Electrical has received the ‘Information Centre Consolidation/Improve Undertaking of the 12 months’ class on the DCS Awards 2025, alongside its longstanding EcoXpert Accomplice, Superior Energy Expertise (APT).
Collectively, the corporate’s deployed a brand new modular knowledge centre at The Pirbright Institute, enabling it to remain abreast of latest technological developments, together with synthetic intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), and quick observe its scientific and viral analysis programmes. The brand new ‘Containerised Information Centre (CDC)’ met the Institute’s requirement for a scalable, resilient, versatile, and power environment friendly infrastructure system that might guarantee the very best ranges of availability and continuity.
“We’re delighted to just accept this award, which displays our continued commitments to effectivity, innovation, and companion collaboration within the digital infrastructure sector,” mentioned Mark Yeeles, Vice President, Safe Energy Division, Schneider Electrical UK and Eire. “This award additional vindicates the position of knowledge centres because the fourth utility and a significant a part of life science analysis, and we’re glad to be recognised alongside our trusted companions at APT for our work collectively at The Pirbright Institute.”
“We’re proud to be recognised by the DCS Awards for our work to develop a brand new modular knowledge centre at The Pirbright Institute, in partnership with Schneider Electrical,” mentioned John Andrew, Answer Architect, Superior Energy Expertise. “The brand new containerised facility supplies Pirbright with a safe, versatile and scalable resolution – enabling its customers to conduct world-leading analysis, whereas supporting future expertise evolutions.”
Future proofing analysis
The Pirbright Institute is on the forefront of world viral analysis, working as one of many UK’s main virus diagnostics and surveillance centres. As a world-leading centre of excellence it conducts analysis into the management and surveillance of virus ailments of cattle, and viruses that unfold from animals to people.
In recent times, it has undergone important digital transformation, and as a part of that course of, leveraged a complicated knowledge centre resolution from APT and Schneider Electrical to allow new ranges of scientific collaboration – all whereas adhering to strict knowledge sovereignty, storage, resiliency, and safety requirements.
Because of the mission-critical nature of its analysis, and the necessity to present continuity of service throughout any modernisation tasks, the Institute needed to determine a brand new technique to construct out its infrastructure to help future technological necessities for HPC and AI.
First looking for a method to modernise its legacy IT and comms rooms and deploy them away from its present buildings, it started to discover the advantages of a containerised knowledge centre and engaged with APT to design and specify its new essential infrastructure system.
As such, the Institute’s new ‘Containerised Information Centre (CDC)’ makes use of key parts from Schneider Electrical’s EcoStruxureä for Information Centres options portfolio, enabling APT to pre-configure its design and pre-test the answer off-site for quicker deployment. The mission was delivered in three phases and inside a strict timeline of 12-weeks, guaranteeing minimal impression on the Institute’s enterprise and demanding purposes.
With the containerised system at its core, Pirbright’s infrastructure is future-proofed for brand new evolutions in high-tech analysis tools reminiscent of sequencers, and diamond-light processes for virus evaluation that may generate knowledge units of 700GB every. In flip, this permits them to leverage new developments in HPC, AI and GPU-powered computing, enabling them to determine breakthroughs in viral analysis at a far quicker price.
The method has allowed The Pirbright Institute to convey its IT infrastructure according to its growth plans, guaranteeing it retains its place because the UK’s foremost centre of excellence in analysis and surveillance of viral ailments.
Moreover, it has the flexibleness and capability to help scientists and researchers as they leverage state-of-the-art laboratories, and the specialised necessities of high-tech virology, HPC, and the huge knowledge it produces – enabling it to additional fast-track its information and contributions to world well being and welfare for animals with a strong IT basis on which to develop ground-breaking analysis for many years to return.
