 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome everyone to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Skado-Kataya, founder and CEO of JSA. Along with my fabulous co-host, top B2B social influencer, Mr. Evan Christel. Hey Evan. Hey everyone, good to see you Jamie and everyone else. Another great episode where we sit down with the most influential folks in the data and telecom space, which support the new requirements of this brave new world we're in. So Jamie, Bitcoin is all the news. Are you a cryptocurrency enthusiast? You know, I follow a few companies but I've been watching your tweets is really where I've been getting my latest knowledge of the Bitcoin's like, rave craziness, what's going on? Well, don't rely on me for financial advice. That's my first suggestion. But do you have a wallet? Do you have a crypto wallet where you buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies or is that not yet on your? Not me personally, but certainly some of my friends. Yes. Yeah, so we've seen Bitcoin go past the epic $50,000 mark, which, you know, given that it was, you know, not too long ago, a few dollars, it's kind of an incredible milestone and the whole crypto space is on fire. And I think you asked me before the show, like, what's behind this? And I wish I knew, what do you think? You know, I'm gonna say what you said to me. You know, we're all talking about it. So it's driving the numbers. I mean, it's all perception, right? So, you know. Perception is reality. And the perception is that, you know, the dollar's gonna collapse or it's a hedge against economic turmoil or that it has some magical fairy dust that's been sprinkled on it. You know, it kind of reminds me of the tulip craze in the 17th century Netherlands where, you know, people would bid up tulips to, you know, thousands of dollars per bulb. You know, there's no inherent value, but some pretty big names like Elon Musk and some banks and others are all in. So what do you think? Buy, sell or hold Bitcoin? What's your personal guess at this point? Yeah, I mean, buy and ride and then sell. Jim Kramer on the line here. I actually decided I had some Bitcoin I've been putting in. I sold it all at 50,000. I thought, you know, just take my money and run. I had a good ride for a little bit. And that wasn't one of the early buyers. But, you know, I'd hate to see that gain that I had disappear, which these things can do. But onto our next topic, speaking of tech trends and hot technology, who do we have with us today? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I think there's a beautiful transition here because, you know, I think Bitcoin wouldn't be where it's at if there wasn't look into secure methods of transport. And as we, this leads us into our introduction to BDX and the CEO and his unique perspectives of the future of our industry. So today, please welcome Bram Singh. Welcome, Bram. Hi there, Jamie. Hi, Evan. Nice to finally see you. And here you, Bram, you're in Hong Kong at the moment. Pretty exciting place. Any insights into how Hong Kong treating you at the moment? Hong Kong's lovely. Hong Kong has always been good to me. Whenever I faltered in my life or career, Hong Kong has picked me up. So for me, Hong Kong, you know, I live in Virginia, Oakton, Virginia, that's home. But Hong Kong has always been a second home to me. I love this place. It's fabulous. It's a dynamo of a sort of super city. So tell me a little bit more about Hong Kong in the context of your vision and mission at BDX. You know, how did you come to be in Hong Kong and in greater China as well? And how has that mission or vision evolved? Sure, I'm sure. Hong Kong is important to BDX, but it's not central to BDX. BDX is more of a Pan-Asian play, Pan-Isia-Pak play, including China, of course. Vision-wise, you know, we're barely a year old and we're already profitable. And you can attribute that to how we decided to kick off. And that was to not get distracted by, you know, shiny objects and just to focus on one thing. And to be great at just one thing rather than being good at many. So we have just tried to be the best. We are not yet the best. Be the best at building or housing customers IT infrastructure. That's it, that's it, that's it. We want to be the best around to house the infrastructure that the customer puts in our care. That's it. So that vision has kept us, you know, going. It's behind how we acquire other data centers of built data centers. And the vision, vision has not changed. It's not changed even though our customer profile has changed. So when we started off, our customers were largely enterprises, large enterprises, medium enterprises. And they of course continue to be the mainstay of BDX. However, surprisingly for a company this young, we have started to attract the large hyperscalers. And so now hyperscalers, you know, or you may call them the large tech companies are now part of our customer mix. It scared me in the beginning. I'll tell you, I'll be frank because I thought there we go. We're going to now go after this large sector and that distracts us from our focus, but it did not. All it did, and I'm so relieved, all it did was help us focus more on being good at housing our customer's IT infrastructure. So to that extent, this change in customer mix, which had me concerned in the beginning has not messed with our vision. So that's our vision. It's got nothing to do with Hong Kong per se, though Hong Kong is important. We are more of a Pan-Asian, Pan-Asia-Path company. And I love your laser-focused vision on the mission. It's absolutely critical for success and to launch last year of all years. What a tough one for many companies yet. Not just BDX, but even the data center business as a whole has been really thriving, growing, expanding. What do you see as the main drivers there? So it's you guys, it's the credit for any growth in the COVID era goes to the people like you and me and Evan and the rest of us scurrying around the internet to eat, work, play, going to the public clouds a lot more than we would normally have. And all of that translates into more data centers. Those clouds, by the way, are not in the sky. They are in rows upon rows upon endless rows in data centers like ours or my competitors. So to that extent, the more the hustle, bustle on the internet, the more data centers you need. And that has been the reason really, more than I would like to claim that we did a great job. I'm sure we did, but the credit goes to the huge move online which by the way was already taking place prior to the pandemic, right? So it's not as if the pandemic gave and suddenly everyone moved online. That's not the case. Online activity has been building up and building up and building up. The pandemic comes and simply accelerates and gives it an impetus that wasn't there before. Now, there are some irreversible changes that are gonna take place as a result of the pandemic, right? There's no denying that. And that's, take two of them are eating habits and not travel, right? You're eating, the restaurants are gonna come back to some extent, but a large percentage of their revenue is gonna come from takeout, home delivery. Home delivery is the thing now, right? So that's not gonna change. That's gonna only get bigger. So the pie, if a restaurant looks at its revenue source, it's gonna be take away more than in-house dining, I suspect. But a bigger hit is gonna be, or a bigger change, I shouldn't say hit, is gonna be to the travel industry. So personal travel is gonna come back, of course. Like I'm now, you know, end of this month, I plan to fly to San Francisco to see my daughter and family. So personal travel is gonna happen, right? But business travel is going to be limited, reduced. You're not gonna have people like me or my colleagues traveling on business as much as they were in the past. I would travel to construction sites, but to meet a customer, or my first recourse would be all this fabulous video conferencing abilities that have been granted to us over the internet, ever since the internet became a video playground, that's another story. So our video conferencing, home delivery, working from home, all of this means more data centers. So really, that's why you are seeing data centers doing a double-digit growth these days. Not just us, but our competitors too. And that's where the change, the permanent change happened, I think. Great, great insight. So let's get into some details. So you're growing at BDX, you're entering new markets, acquiring new facilities across Asia. I see you've built a state-of-the-art new data center in Nanjing and China. Tell us about what's unique about this facility, how it's better or different than anything you've done before. So the Nanjing facility came up just when we had decided on how we're gonna structure BDX. The one way BDX is different from a lot of my friends in the competition is that our data centers are highly automated, minimally manned, sorry, minimally manned, highly automated, and connecting back to a central, what we call C-Cube, that is centralized customer command and control. So our central platform now is passed into every data center in the BDX cluster. So a lot of stuff that would remain in data center, a lot of activities, a lot of manpower that would be in each data center has now been centralized. So of course you can't centralize electrical and plumbing and mechanical activities. They remain in data centers, but the rest of it is all centralized. So now, and this is the only way, this is the only way we could have managed to do all these acquisitions effectively and economically because you can't just acquire a data center and then get all, so each data center comes with its own complete business infrastructure. And all of that duplication makes it very expensive. So rather we'll centralize that. And to that extent, Nenjing is unique because now it is minimally manned, highly automated, connected back to central command and functioning as, well, I won't say lights out as yet, but as it expands, it'll become an almost lights out data center, which is highly automated. And that's, I think, the future of this industry. The other interesting anecdote pretending to Nenjing that I would love to share is how it was built in the middle of COVID, almost by remote control. I used to visit Nenjing once a month in 2019 and that completely seized in 2020, when after January, I couldn't go there because there's a lockdown. And yet in November, when finally I managed to go there and get out of quarantine and go to my data center, I had, we had rather the data centers staring back at me completely built, fully functional, without the presence of any senior BDX staff. How this happened, you ask? It is, we have a young team. We call them under 35s in Nenjing. They just said, heck with it, they took charge and they supervised and got that building done. So that is, as far as I'm concerned, it's minimally manned, highly automated. But for me, at a very personal level, the uniqueness of Nenjing is the fact that it was built without us interfering. And the team on the ground took matters in their own hands and built a billion data center there. So that for me is the uniqueness of Nenjing. That's amazing, it's amazing. And I feel like it's a great transition to this next question I have for you, as well as your high focus on your mission and we've been talking Bitcoin, but as a need for more data co-location capacity continues to grow, so of course is the need to safeguard this data. And at BDX, you guys have really developed some tools to go over and beyond here, such as your BDX 360 and BDX SmartPan. So can you tell us more about these solutions and the safeguarding that you put in place? Sure, I'm actually very excited about BDX 360 because of why it happened and how effective it is. Why it happened again, I talk back to our focus. We are focused on just delivering housing for IT infrastructure for our customers. So then we built a lot of tools around that housing and one of the best little things we did was BDX 360. BDX 360, I spoke about the central command we have. So the guys in central command can go on their PC, laptop, smartphone, wherever and have a complete insight into the vital signs from every data center in the BDX cluster. So the guys in central command can see the vital signs in menging Hong Kong, Singapore and manage situations. The same tool, the same BDX 360 tool can be used in each data center by the facilities folks there to manage their data centers. And here's the best part. The same tool can be used by my customers to manage and look at, monitor the vital signs in their ecosystems. So whether they have a rack or a cage or a hybrid ecosystem connected to public clouds they can use the 360 to look at all that and manage it. So that's the beauty of this little piece of IT work we did, it's pretty genius. I could do it and deploy it very economically because the same tool we use for central command each data center and customers. And this is something the competition has been working very hard to do. Some have got there, some haven't but they've all got there in a very expensive way we got it done by using the same tool in all these locations. So that's why I find this exciting and this tool is what gives the customer the security because now he can access it using QR codes that only he, there's only generated for him. He can look at what's happening to his racks or his cage and manages ecosystem. Yeah, that's super impressive. I think there's a view that the data center world is somewhat being commoditized but it's great to see you innovating there in a major way. So looking at your career you've been in this industry a long time I won't ask how many decades that has been. But tell me, what are some of, many decades? Yes, I'm on my third decade here personally in this industry but what are some of the biggest changes that you've seen personally over the course of that career? So if this is your third decade you remember this change I'm gonna talk about that the first biggest change that I experienced as a young guy in this industry was the demise of the accounting rate. So while the accounting rate was in place and just for the younger folk on this chat we are having the accounting rate was this completely artificial rate put into place between the two telecos, right? They were the masters of their domain. AT&T was master of the US. Hong Kong Telecom was master of Hong Kong and they decided what's that rate at which they would pay each other for calls they terminate completely nothing to do with the reality just a number they would pick so that they could overcharge their customers. So that was the accounting rate and because of that when I first joined this industry we would only fly first class and then there would be a car pulling up to the tarmac to pick us up it was like a diplomatic mission and yeah, yeah so that ended when that ended there was the first big change we old school guys had to deal with. The second big change I guess was the advent of the internet but not so much the advent of the internet as the internet becoming a video playground that was the big change when everything and anything could be done on the internet and that had a great very interesting I won't say great because it impacted all of us it had an interesting twist to the tail and that is with the advent of the internet becoming a video playground the mantle of masters of the universe moved from the telcos to the big tech companies the Google's, the Facebook's, the Microsoft's, the Apple's they now called the shuts in this business simply because of how the internet transforms itself. So that was the second biggest change in my career the third one was a collateral of that and that was the demise of the carrier hotels earlier in the industry and that was the biggest change in my career of hotels, earlier used to have a carrier hotel you want to connect to the internet to connect you had to go to the carrier hotel and interconnect there well soon the independent data center operators like Aquinix and others, CoreSight and others became more powerful and CoreSight itself for example in Los Angeles I remember their carrier hotel was one wheelchair one wheelchair was the queen of the West Coast and the carrier hotel in 60 Hudson was the queen of the East Coast and somewhere in the early 2000s CoreSight started building I think it's 900 Alameda which became their center of the universe slowly because that's where they were housed Google that's where they were housed content so content players and eyeballs then became the main state and not carrier hotel so that was I guess the third one the fourth one I won't go into too much because it's not very interesting but very germane to changes and that is that the subsea cables then became again they were sequestered literally by the high tech companies so now Google, Facebook built better cables than the telcos think about it the whole subsea universe which is the archery of the internet the archeries of the internet are gone from the telcos but they still are there but the big players are the high big tech companies the last change guys is something that's going with happening even as we speak and that is renewables taking over from fossil fuels you know people say when was that tipping point it could have been the advent of the telcos Tesla it could be a variety of things I do believe it could be the Paris Accord I do believe it was during the presidential debate when Biden then candidate Biden dist fossil fuels in the debate with Trump and I thought oh my god there he's lost the presidency he's not going to win he's not going to win you can't dis fossil fuels in America he did it and guess what nothing happened he became the president and that's because the American public has already reconciled itself to renewables and that's the big big big change for us in the data center world because we are not exactly you know the various municipalities where we go and locate ourselves are not exactly enamored by the amount of power we pull and by our carbon footprints and so renewables are going to be key to us in the future this is going to be the big change so these are the four or five changes that I've seen happen in my lifetime and I'm so glad I managed to survive all of these I hope I survived the renewables one but yeah we need to post those five points into an article in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow that was a great epic answer to to a pretty simple question thanks Jamie yeah no it was a phenomenal phenomenal answer and you know kind of leads me to my next question which is a little bird did tell me that when you're not uber busy being CEO of BDX you also maybe try your hand at writing a few novels so tell us and clearly your storyteller from your last answer tell us what have you written and what are you still working on so I okay so I write I write two hours every day either five to seven or six to eight in the morning before I do my day job so this is an habit I cultivated while writing the first novel I wrote and by the way I just either I write and I write novels or I'll write text stuff nothing in between so the first novel I wrote I've written is Bombay swastika and it's about this Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who ended up in you know what was then Bombay now Mumbai and yeah so that story took off for three months I think it was on the Amazon best read and by the way no self-publishing proper publisher you know acquired the rights that's great do you have a movie deal when can we see the movie funny you ask they are actually someone's doing what they call a network so no a Netflix Bible I don't know what that is someone's doing a Netflix Bible on that and they keep calling me up the publisher does to ask for you know comments I do that but yeah so who knows yeah we find out BDX doesn't give me any any time to have those fantasies so let's see well that's that's that's fabulous I'd love to read the book it's quite a fascinating premise actually I'm interested in Bombay swastika Bombay swastika take it out yeah if you get I'll take a look and you're working now too yeah actually yes I mean my next book which I work working on is called her browser is free and it's about it's about Washington DC politics it's a thriller Washington DC is very close you know when I live in Oakland it's just 30 minutes from DC so this is about about Washington DC her browser history yeah let's see when it comes out the publishers is on my case because you know one take took an advance and spent it and has not written the book yet so they're not happy they're not happy so that's that's that's awesome it's really interesting to see what you're involved within we actually have some rapid fire questions now which we have mainly to try to embarrass you but I don't know how to accomplish that I think the first question I know the answer to if you could live anywhere in the world post covid post lockdowns where would it be and I think it might be Hong Kong is that is that right no it would be often Virginia that's my home okay well I was thinking of something a little more exotic like Mauritius no or something I go back to I love it too much it's a car to love a piece that's great well if you weren't in this industry what would you be doing I also think I know the answer there so these questions aren't very revealing at this point but what would I assume writing and the third question what's your favorite pastime again I'm guessing writing probably reading any good any good book suggestions that are not of your own authorship or yeah you should you should you should read a very underrated author who is my guru I've never met him but he's taught me a lot is Martin Cruz Smith who wrote Gorky Park read him oh that's a classic yeah that was published maybe what 30 years ago or 40 maybe at this point one of the few books that became an even better movie but his other books are phenomenal hi Havana Bay he's just a great writer so he's one of the other guy who I would recommend you read is a professor in Stanford his name is Adam Johnson he wrote a book called The Orphan Master's Son which has to be one of the best books I've written never got a chance to get it it's about North Korea brilliant book brilliant book Jamie we may need a you know a favorite author section in the show notes here this is a fun topic what I need to read next I'm definitely thinking these up yeah absolutely thank you so much for joining us from it's been such a pleasure you've taught me so much I have a lot to share and I appreciate your insight and and thank you Evan of always for joining us as my fearless co-host here and guys if you've enjoyed watching or listening to today's Data Movers podcast be sure to check us out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes we release every other Wednesday so go ahead and listen in there Evan yeah and be sure to follow us on my favorite platform Twitter at jscotto and of course Evan Curstell where we will engage and retweet you in the meantime as always guys happy networking