 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Barb Mitchell, coming to you from VirtualPTC 21. Joining me today is Brom Singh, CEO of BDX. Brom, welcome again to JSA TV. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. The last time I think we spoke was when was it last PTC or after that? We did speak at PTC, but I think ITW, virtual ITW, we spoke at. It's all virtual these days, isn't it? All virtual, for now, right? Yeah, for now. So, you know, we've spoken many times, as we've said, and most of our viewers probably know you by now, but for those who don't, would you mind just giving us a little bit of an overview on BDX? What makes you unique as an organization? You know, all organizations think they're unique. In our case, I guess it stems from the fact that we were literally born in the middle of a pandemic, which has a scrambling because in our industry, building out data centers has become that much more difficult with the travel restrictions. So just think about it, in 2020, we, so we're barely, by the way, we're barely a year old, right? So in 2020, we had to form a company. We had to acquire data centers. So we've acquired one in Guangzhou, two in Hong Kong, one in Singapore, and then as if that wasn't enough, we had to build, or we built one in Nanjing. All of that in the middle of a pandemic. So if that doesn't make a company unique and give it some great DNA, then, you know, what does? On top of it, because of the pandemic, the upside of the pandemic for us, terrible thing to say, but it's a fact, has been the huge increase in demand as more and more companies move their critical infrastructure online. So, you know, we barely opened shop in Nanjing and it's 30% full. We just acquired the data center in Singapore, I mentioned to you, and we are already building four new floors on that data center to meet the demand, add all that to having to run and operate them to efficiently for our customers. And I tell you, the team has really stood up to this test so well. I'm so proud of them. So the uniqueness really actually comes from this team that has withstood the test of 2020 and grown this company to become, you know, a brand to be reckoned with in the Asian market when it comes to data centers. And that against so many bigger, stronger, more established brands than BDX. So just in terms of what we have achieved in 2020, there's a uniqueness to us. Then, of course, to the fact that we have also modeled ourselves differently, right? I mean, as we acquire more and more data centers, we can't keep replicating the same infrastructure in each data center. So we've done something unique. We have all our data centers are highly automated and minimally manned and they all connect back to a central command. This, I don't think too many data centers do. So all of this we added up and there you have a unique model to create value in the data center business. Yeah. And I mean, as you said, you know, what a year 2020 was for BDX, it was exciting to watch and see just how the team came together and thrived. And as you said, despite some pretty tough conditions globally, but you also mentioned a little bit just about what that's meant for the data center industry, right? So the world shifted so quickly to digital, making the demand for the data center industry just explode. What do you think the future looks like for the industry as a whole based on that and other conditions? And how are data centers, how is BDX preparing for even more demand in the future? So you saw from my last response, the demand is through the roof and not just for us, for all our peers, our fellow data center companies, not just in Asia, in the US, in Europe. The demand is through the roof because, like I said, well, before the pandemic already, things were moving online. Everything, for example, in China, well before the pandemic, when I was going there, the online world was such an integral part of typical Chinese person's life that, you know, when I go there, I'm probably the only guy having a wad of cash. No one uses paper money. And this is before the pandemic. I, my American credit cards, they would look at it like, what the heck is this? Because everyone makes payments through their cell phones. Even the beggar, the one beggar in Nanjing, I'll never forget, he's got his cop where you are supposed to put in money, but it's got a QR code clicked down to it. So, you know, you put in money, you must be an American. Otherwise, you just want to give it money through the QR code. So, you know, this was the world before the pandemic. The pandemic comes and now suddenly, this whole thing has exacerbated the exponential growth in online business. So, we were already tackling that through 2020, as you just, as I just mentioned to you. Now, we have, you know, to factor for stuff like 5G, stuff like artificial intelligence, AI, so the, which is AI, for example, has, has already impacted us in Nanjing. So, luckily, we are designed there is for high, high yield racks, which require more power. AI requires a lot of power. So, normally a data center rack would be what, 5 or 6 kilowatts? Forget that, it's gone. In Nanjing, everything we have is going to be 10, 12, 15 kilowatts of rack. So, that is the kind of demand we have to factor for when it comes to, you know, like I said, already things moving online. Already the growth is going, going by leaps and bounds. And now you have AI coming in, which requires more power, which means we have to find more power, but also how much power we find, from where we get that power, and how we apply that power, how intelligently we use it, is going to decide the fate of, of, of, is going to decide BDX's fate and that of other companies like ours. So, that is the huge growth that we are now scrambling to factor for. Then comes 5G. That's going to be the next one, which is interesting because 5G is going to require that we build smaller data centers at the edges. This is a whole new world that's opening up because as these 5G base stations are set up across the far reaches of a country, they don't want to have to go back to the core for the store to access data or to manipulate data. They want it closer to the, to the base station. So, now we will be building these data centers very close to base station clusters so that the telcos can, you know, just come to those data centers to access the data that otherwise they would have to go further down the road. Sorry. Now, typically telcos do this themselves. Typically, telcos like to do everything themselves. We are positioning ourselves as that trusted partner simply because we have got such old ties with telcos, the people who are in data in BDX. They trust us and we are getting them to pass that the building and designing of data centers at the edges faster to us rather than do it yourself. So these are the growth areas that BDX is now looking at as the next stage of our build-outs. Did I answer your question? Yeah, I think you did and I think that it leads me to another question that I actually have for you. I mean, you were talking quite a bit about, you know, the drive towards more, right? So, you know, more capabilities, more, you know, being able to sustain the demand and the growth of things like 5G, AI, etc. What can you say about the, you know, I think there's a lot of talk as well in the industry now just about as more is used in terms of energy, power, resources, what does that mean in terms of the responsibility the industry has towards sustainability, for example, and how's BDX sort of reacting to that and preparing? Okay, so that's a great question. So cities, countries, cities, they need data centers because data centers are, you know, literally the junction of the internet and now have become as much a part of a country's critical infrastructure as roads, railways, airports, data centers are now part of that whole spectrum of what a country constitutes as its critical infrastructure. So, that is established. But however, they also view us with a bit of alarm because of our huge power consumption and also the amount of real estate that we take up. So, if you look at cities like Amsterdam, Singapore, and the tier one cities in China, they all say we need you guys, but we don't need the same old, same old. So Amsterdam, for example, put a pause to data center build up last, the year before last or was it last year, they may have opened up a bit. Singapore is, you know, like it or not, Singapore is clamping down now. China is very neary of data center coming into Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen. You've got to meet, you've got to, you know, there are some high bars you have to leap over to get, they're very concerned about the energy consumption. So, the power consumption is a huge problem or a challenge, right? And the problem, and then the thing is, because of the huge amount of power we draw, I just can't slap solar panels onto my walls and solve the problem. That's not how it works. It just can't. It's not, you won't even scratch the surface of the issue. So, what we have done in BPX is we have turned to our majority shareholder, iSquared, which is an infrastructure fund, infrastructure private equity company. And they have huge interests and investments in renewables. So, we are working with them to set up solar and wind power solutions that then connect back into the same grid that we are drawing power from. So, what that means is now the power that I draw into my data center from that grid is technically green power, because I'm putting in, you know, I'm putting in 100 megawatts of green power into the grid. I'm drawing 100 megawatts for my data center. And, you know, it is, it is kind of, I even out. So, this is how we, at least in, at least in BPX, this is how we are solving that or addressing that issue. And 421 to 23, this is going to be a huge imperative for us. It is a big, you know, large thing to consider and so important. And it's so great to know that, you know, of course, it's top of mind for you at BPX. And you're already thinking about ways that you're actively offsetting your footprint and thinking into the future. So, that's really great to hear. I also know that, you know, obviously, we already mentioned how 2020 was so busy for you, lots of new, you know, facilities and actually the launch of several new services and solutions. Can you talk a little bit about how some of these innovative services and solutions, you know, are set to help the growing needs of organizations and what this, how this also sets you up to, you know, to grow into 2021 and beyond. So, in 2020, you know, our IT and product people, all that it was focused on creating automated tools to help a variety of customer functions, reporting the ability for a customer to access and monitor his racks, his cage, all these tools were created in 2020. Also, the ability to cross-connect and interconnect just from a portal rather than having to go through the whole milieu of sending a notice to us and then someone manually does that, it's all gone. It's now all software controlled cross-connects for our customers. All that was, all these tools were set up in 2020. Now, what we have done is for 2021, we have promoting, Jennifer is her marketing department, is promoting all of them together as a managed business service solution for our customers. So, now our customer, his IT person can be anywhere in the world and he now has the same access to the vital information about his racks and cage, you know, humidity, temperature, et cetera, et cetera, as well as information on the data movement in his network and the state and the connectivity and what's happening in his virtual infrastructure in the cloud. All of that together, the whole ecosystem, that IT person, my customer's IT guy, he can now access all of that using the same tools and the same way as my own technician can. So, the BX technician, the same tools that he uses to access all this information to make sure that the whole ecosystem is humming properly can now be done by the IT tech of my customer. So, the customer now has access to information and data to generate his reports and to arrive at conclusions. Also, to do tasks like, you know, migrating to the public cloud, managing the connectivity between his physical racks and the virtual racks in the public cloud. All the stuff, guys, that he would have to otherwise depend on some sweatshop in Bangalore to do for him, IT sweatshop in Bangalore. You know, you have these companies with hundreds of people manually doing stuff and pretending it's IT. Whereas, in this case, we have an automated solution doing exactly the same thing at a fraction of the cost. And this, I do believe and I sincerely believe is BDX is huge differentiator in the market. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Amazing. I think that's all the time we have. And I always feel like, you know, we could talk for hours, right? There's so many things, so many great things happening with BDX and so many exciting things to come. You know, I have already 10 more questions I'd love to ask at that time. But we'll leave it here. We'll just let me just leave by saying, you know, for viewers who do want more information, where should they go? We have like, you know, we have the BDX world. I think it's www.bdxworld.com where, you know, the same, anyone can come for information. My customers can go access the portal for their, you know, like I mentioned to you, the same, from the same site, they get into their portal to be able to see the 360 view on their business. And it's the same place you can go if you want to visit one of my sites, just go there. And this is, I love this, you know, you go to www.bdxworld.com, enter your information and say you want to go to an engine or you want, you want to see these sites in Hong Kong or Singapore, and you of course need to have name a sponsor. And you get a QR code. And when you get the QR code, you print it out, put it on your, on your, on your cell phone, and then go to the site. You don't have to again fill up a whole bunch of forms that you just show the QR code of the gate, the scanner, the gate opens for you, you go in and you will be allowed where you're supposed to go and not allowed where you're not supposed to go. And no more, you know, going to a, the extensive paperwork fill out, which I used to hit personally, you know, all that's gone. So yeah, come visit us, get a QR code and come visit us. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Bro. Thank you so much for your time. It's always such a pleasure. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts. Happy networking.