Red Dot Analytics (RDA), a spin-off from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, is set to commercialise its AI-driven digital twin solution designed to help transform data centre operations.
This plans follows the successful completing of a seed fund round with investment from IMO Ventures, Avior Capital, and GSR Ventures.
“Our technology improves the sustainability of data centres in terms of their energy and carbon footprint, as it greatly increases the productivity, efficiency, and resiliency of a data centre’s facilities. Another benefit is that capital and operational expenditure investment in a data centre can be reduced,” said Prof. Wen Yonggang, who heads research and development at RDA, and Wen is a full Professor and President’s Chair of Computer Science and Engineering at NTU.
RDA’s research, called cognitive digital twin, enables data centre operators to apply AI-driven digital transformation to solve a big dilemma in the industry: how to achieve energy efficiency without compromising its availability.
According to Wen , the “surging demand for digital services translates to more data centres being built, which naturally brings about concerns as to their associated energy consumption and consequent impact on climate change”.
RDA’s proprietary technology will help digitalise, optimise, and automate Data Centre operations, improving the data centre’s CAPEX, OPEX, and sustainability.
The technology pivots on a network of industry-grade digital twins, cross-calibrated with operational data from existing IoT devices by an AI agent. The network of twins serves two purposes to synthesise a large volume of self-labelled operational data for AI model training and validate control policies derived from well-trained AI models, in a dual cycle loop manner.
The investors cited the team of researchers, the importance of the data centre industry and its increasing impact on climate change, along with the brilliance of RDA’s technology as their reasons to invest in commercialising RDA’s technology.
The investors cited the team of researchers, the importance of the data centre industry and its increasing impact on climate change, along with the brilliance of RDA’s technology as their reasons to invest in commercialising RDA’s technology.
“This year, end user spending on data centre infrastructure is expected to hit US$200 billion, accelerated by the post-pandemic growth in demand for digital transformation. And we believe that RDA will be able to expand to more industries in the future,” said Yutong Zhang, managing director of GSR Ventures.
She pointed out that digital twin technology models critical infrastructure in the physical world and optimises operations through AI.
“RDA’s core team has been on the cutting edge of digital twin research for many years, specialising in automation solutions for dynamic cooling optimisation, predictive maintenance, and capacity management. They’ve helped leading data centre customers to significantly reduce their energy cost and breakdown risk,” Zhang added.
Meanwhile, Calvin Sun, vice president for business strategy and development at RDA, said: “By commercialising the digital twin technology, RDA hopes to collaborate and partner with more data centre operators and equipment vendors to transform the future of data centres into a much greener and sustainable one.”
