Fabrice Raison
Director of the smart building Business Unit at SPIE ICS
“We supported our customer from start to finish in their considerations regarding both the technical aspects and the value proposition. As a digital services company, we were able to plan ahead for the needs of Thésée DataCenter’s future customers, for whom outsourcing to the cloud is becoming a major issue”, says Fabrice Raison, smart buildings department director at SPIE ICS.
To cool its servers, Thésée DataCenter chose Indirect Free Cooling, a technology that uses outside air to reduce energy consumption by 30 to 35%. In addition, Siemens deployed a control solution combining machine learning and AI technologies (see box below) to optimise the regulation of these cooling systems using sensors to gather data, which is then analysed in real-time by algorithms, further reducing consumption.
Alain Huchon
Project Manager at SPIE ICS
The expertise and experience of SPIE ICS in IT rooms and smart buildings were key factors in integrating these innovative solutions. “We have developed the interfaces that enable all these infrastructure elements to communicate with each other, including the artificial intelligence ‘layer’. Given the different industrial and IT protocols, it is essential that we pool and federalise all the data generated, and channel it into a centralised technical management system. In other words, we need to find a common language, as each system has its own!” explains Alain Huchon.
Palou Yandja
Business Engineer at SPIE ICS
The challenge was successfully overcome as the worksite was able to start on 18 January 2021, after a study phase of about a year. “It’s really satisfying because the diversity of equipment and sophistication of the solutions deployed, particularly the AI, create complexity. This is further proof of SPIE ICS’s expertise in the integration of smart solutions with low environmental impact”, says business engineer, Palou Yandja.
SPIE ICS is also responsible for providing site security: smart locks, strong authentication, biometrics, video surveillance, intrusion detection, etc. “In this area, we draw on the experience we gained in deploying access control solutions at our new headquarters”, explains Palou Yandja. Following this successful collaboration, SPIE ICS wishes to support Thésée DataCenter in the production of servers, a service component that is essential for meeting the new challenges of speed and security of company data.
Christophe Bouniol, CEO of Thésée DataCenter
"Thésée DataCenter is a one-of- a-kind hosting center: because it is French, because it guarantees high availability of our customers’ data (Tier-IV certification*) and because of its reduced carbon footprint. SPIE ICS has been working with us since the study phase to develop a global technical solution integrating the various technologies chosen. The expertise of its teams in managing this type of complex project is very valuable to us, both in terms of steering the integration engineering and its implementation, and in ensuring the efficiency of the data centre through the contribution of artificial intelligence."
Alberto Carpita, Business Development Europe at Siemens Smart Infrastructure
"We have provided the smart optimisation solution (White Space Cooling Optimisation), which guarantees the right temperature for the data centre servers at all times and reacts to bursts of heat or failure of a cooling system in a room. As this new data centre is used by several suppliers, SPIE ICS’s role is fundamental in ensuring the fluidity and correct alignment of the interactions. Our personal relationship with the SPIE ICS team is excellent, which allows us to progress through the project in an environment of mutual trust.”"
