IDTechEx analysts attended Data Centre World in London as part of ongoing data center sustainability and thermal management research. This article highlights three insights from the event.

Front and side radars serve distinct yet complementary roles in ADAS, making them essential for autonomous vehicles. IDTechEx explores the latest radar developments and explores autonomy leveling up, with Level 2+ asserting itself within the US and Europe's autonomous vehicle markets.

Parallel computer architectures, such as those deployed for modern high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, frequently encounter memory bottlenecks that limit performance, known as the 'memory wall'. IDTechEx assesses the key developments and trends in memory and storage technologies, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM), DDR, NAND, and many more.

Quantum sensors get their name from their ability to measure on a quantum scale the smallest known parts of the universe, including atoms and other tiny particles, some of which were unknown before the introduction of this technology. IDTechEx's report, "Quantum Sensors Market 2025-2045: Technology, Trends, Players, Forecasts" provides an in-depth analysis of the technology by type and application, forecasting the quantum sensor market to reach US$2.2 billion in 2045, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.4%.

Data centers can be likened to an ecosystem of computing facilities that contain many facets required to store and handle data. IDTechEx's latest report, "Sustainability for Data Centers 2025-2035: Green Technologies, Market Forecasts, and Players", unpacks efforts being made in the data center sector towards increased sustainability in response to the rising CO2 emissions from the development of AI.

Chiplets allow for GPU, CPU, and IO components to become miniaturized to suit the rise of smaller and more compact devices and hardware and can bring about a means of integrating various functions into a more simplified, unified design.

In the last few months, three of the world's largest tech giants made waves with their announcements in quantum computing. But what will the impact of Microsoft's Majorana 1, Google's Willow, and Amazon's Ocelot be once the dust has settled, and is it just big tech making strides in developing quantum computers?

In 2023 alone, semiconductor giant TSMC reported consumption of a staggering 101 million m3 of water, highlighting the scale of thirst in this fast-growing sector. Furthermore, as node technology advances, so do the number of manufacturing process steps, and the usage of single wafer tools instead of batch tools, making the task of reducing water usage both challenging and even more critical.

It should come as no surprise that PIC transceivers are fast becoming essential tools in the AI revolution, where they speed up connections between nodes in data centers whilst reducing power consumption, allowing larger AI models to be trained and executed. IDTechEx's recent report on the topic, "Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits 2025-2035: Technologies, Market, Forecasts", predicts this application to be the major contributor to its US$54 billion forecast for the PIC market in 2035.

Newly established radar startups worldwide have raised nearly US$1.2 billion over the past 12 years; approximately US$980 million of which is predominantly directed toward the automotive sector. Through more than 40 funding rounds, these companies have driven the implementation and advancement of radar technologies in key areas such as autonomous driving and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Thursday 13 March 2025 - Why Photonic Integrated Circuits are at the Heart of the AI Revolution; What is a PIC?; The role of PICs, including silicon photonics, in data center transceivers; How the growth in AI accelerator demand is shaping the PIC transceiver market; A roadmap for the future of datacom transceivers; An insight into IDTechEx's ten-year forecasts for the PIC market

Radars have had a place within the automotive sector for over two decades, beginning with the first use for adaptive cruise control and many other developments taking place since. With radar technology becoming cheaper and, therefore, more widely available, ADAS system features are offered by many vehicle manufacturers. IDTechEx predicts that the automotive radar market will grow with a CAGR of 4.8% between 2024 and 2034.

IDTechEx forecasts that by 2035, the global data center sector will have saved US$150 billion by using low-carbon energy sources compared to a fossil fuel scenario (taking 2024 as the baseline). Some emerging energy technologies expected to play an increasingly important role are explored in this article.

High-perfornance computing (HPC) hardware powers the most advanced computer systems in the world, used for complex simulations, training AI, and more. Explore the driving forces behind the growing demand for HPC, along with the key trends shaping its future.

Thursday 27 February - The issues with conventional semiconductor manufacturing and circuit patterning; Barriers and opportunities for sustainable manufacturing processes; The search for green chemicals and PFAS alternatives for semiconductor circuit patterning; The impact of EUV lithography on sustainability; Research focuses and advancements in dry etching

As growing numbers of countries identify critical materials within their economies, the ability to recycle them is becoming increasingly important, especially considering both their economic importance and ongoing supply risks. Sustainability goals rely on growing technology sectors like electric vehicles, which rely on magnets to be manufactured, ultimately meaning sourcing and recycling critical materials is an economic necessity to keep supply chains running.

In this article, IDTechEx explores two different quantum sensing approaches: semiconductor-based and superconducting single-photon detectors, and the competition between them in enabling the photonic quantum computing and quantum communications industries.

When the Society of Automotive Engineers released their definitions of varying levels of automation from level 0 to level 5, it became easier to define and distinguish between the many capabilities and advancements of autonomous vehicles. Supervision and functionality remain in the balance as values to prioritize for OEMs choosing to employ higher levels of automation.

AI is placed to reshape the battery supply chain over the next few years, with machine learning providing powerful tools for cell developers, materials suppliers, battery users, and even recyclers. IDTechEx Technology Analyst shares more on how valuable data can finally be used to its full effect.

Thursday 20 February 2025 - Data Center Energy Use Exceeds Sweden's Annual Consumption, Driving Demand for Sustainable Technologies; Energy consumption overview; Regional regulations and hyperscalers' actions and targets; Scope 2: Power generation technology benchmarking and cost analysis; Scope 2: Energy efficiency trend of data center IT, thermal and electrical components; Scope 3 decarbonization technologies; Market size forecast of carbon-free energy for data center and future opportunities