Digital Realty Launches Innovation Lab to Accelerate AI and Hybrid Cloud Implementation

Rhea-AI Summary

Digital Realty (NYSE:DLR) has launched its Data Center Innovation Lab (DRIL), a state-of-the-art testing facility located at its Northern Virginia campus. The lab provides a real-world environment for partners and customers to validate AI and hybrid cloud deployments before full-scale implementation.

The DRIL features high-density colocation supporting up to 150kW per cabinet, AI infrastructure optimization through the ePlus AI Experience Center, hybrid cloud validation capabilities, and latency testing across multiple locations. The facility integrates with Digital Realty's ServiceFabric® global interconnection platform and includes partnerships with major technology providers including AMD, Cisco, Lenovo, and Supermicro.

The company plans to expand DRIL globally, with London scheduled to go live in early 2026.

Positive

• Supports high-density AI and HPC workloads up to 150kW per cabinet
• Enables risk-free testing and validation before full deployment
• Features direct cloud connectivity and hybrid cloud validation capabilities
• Partnerships with major technology providers including AMD, Cisco, and Lenovo
• Global expansion planned with London facility opening in 2026

Negative

• None.

Insights

Data Center Infrastructure Specialist

Digital Realty's new innovation lab strengthens its competitive position in AI infrastructure while creating additional revenue opportunities.

Digital Realty's launch of its Data Center Innovation Lab (DRIL) represents a strategic positioning move in the rapidly evolving AI infrastructure landscape. The facility addresses a critical market gap by providing enterprises a risk-free environment to test complex AI and hybrid cloud deployments before full-scale implementation – something previously unavailable at this scale and integration level.

The lab's 150kW per cabinet capacity significantly exceeds standard data center densities, providing the high-performance infrastructure necessary for testing computationally intensive AI workloads. This capability positions Digital Realty to capture demand from enterprises deploying resource-intensive AI applications that require specialized infrastructure validation.

The strategic location within Digital Realty's Northern Virginia campus leverages one of the world's most interconnected data center regions, providing optimal conditions for testing latency-sensitive applications. The integration with ServiceFabric® (Digital Realty's interconnection platform) creates a comprehensive testing ecosystem that can potentially accelerate customer adoption of additional Digital Realty services.

The impressive partner ecosystem – including AMD, Cisco, Lenovo, Supermicro, CommScope, Vcinity, and Zenlayer – suggests the lab will have access to cutting-edge technologies while creating a potential customer referral network. These partnerships validate the lab's technical capabilities while expanding Digital Realty's market reach.

From a business perspective, the DRIL creates multiple revenue opportunities: direct lab usage fees, accelerated colocation deals after successful testing, increased adoption of ServiceFabric® interconnection services, and stronger partner referral channels. The planned expansion to London by early 2026 indicates confidence in the concept and positions Digital Realty to replicate this offering globally.

While not explicitly stated, this initiative likely requires modest capital investment relative to Digital Realty's broader data center operations, potentially delivering attractive returns through accelerated customer acquisition and reduced deployment friction for complex AI workloads.

State-of-the-Art Lab Provides Dedicated Space for Optimizing Infrastructure Before Full-Scale Deployment

DALLAS, Sept. 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), the largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions, today announced the introduction of its data center innovation lab. The Digital Realty Innovation Lab (DRIL) offers partners and customers a fully supported, real-world data center testing environment where they can bring their own workloads or leverage pre-configured infrastructure to validate AI and hybrid cloud-deployments before scaling.

Located within a live colocation data center at Digital Realty's Northern Virginia campus, the DRIL enables existing customers to configure their new workloads in the lab environment for validation and optimization. New customers can collaborate with Digital Realty and its partners to replicate a representative architecture – enabling realistic, low-risk testing without impacting production systems. The DRIL eliminates guesswork by allowing businesses to test performance, optimize configurations, and seamlessly connect to cloud and network providers via ServiceFabric®, Digital Realty's global interconnection and orchestration platform.

"Innovation isn't optional – it's a competitive requirement in a world where data volumes and AI adoption are accelerating," said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Realty. "Yet, many enterprises still deploy complex infrastructure without the ability to test, validate, or optimize in real-world conditions. The DRIL changes that. It provides a live, high-density environment where customers gain real-time, data-driven insights to fine-tune their deployments before scaling. As hybrid IT, AI, and colocation strategies converge, the innovation lab is purpose-built to help enterprises stay agile, reduce risk, and move faster - from proof of concept to production."

Key features of the DRIL include:

• High-Density AI and HPC Testing – The DRIL supports AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads with high-density colocation, accommodating workloads up to 150kW per cabinet.
• AI Infrastructure Optimization – The ePlus AI Experience Center enables businesses to explore AI-specific power, cooling, and GPU resource requirements in an environment optimized for AI infrastructure.
• Hybrid Cloud Validation – With direct cloud connectivity, enterprises can refine hybrid strategies and seamlessly onboard with ServiceFabric® through cross connects.
• AI Workload Orchestration – The DRIL allows customers to orchestrate AI workloads across Digital Realty's Private AI Exchange (AIPx), ensuring seamless integration and performance.
• Latency Testing Across Locations – Enterprises can test latency scenarios ensuring seamless performance across multiple locations as well as cloud destinations.

The DRIL partner quotes:

"At AMD, we're committed to enable the world's most advanced computing for every workload, from the cloud to the edge. The DRIL showcases how AMD EPYC™ processors and AMD Instinct™ accelerators deliver exceptional AI and HPC performance in a production-grade, high-density powered and liquid cooled environment. Alongside the DRIL, we work directly with enterprise customers, partners, and the broader ecosystem to accelerate innovation, validate real-world use cases, and help organizations bring AI-powered solutions to market faster," – Robert Hormuth, Corporate Vice President, Architecture and Strategy, Data Center Solutions Group, AMD

"AI investment requires complete confidence. The infrastructure supporting AI workloads is too critical to blindly trust without testing. Cisco is excited to collaborate with Digital Realty to help customers understand their infrastructure needs by testing on full-stack Cisco AI Pods. Whether the use case is edge, RAG, training or large-scale inferencing, it is critical to understand the networking, compute and security demands so customers can trust their AI investments will pay off," – Kevin Wollenweber, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Center and Internet Infrastructure, Cisco

"The DRIL is a showcase for what's possible when intelligent design meets cutting-edge infrastructure. CommScope is proud to provide the foundational interconnection layer – from fiber and copper trunks to pre-terminated cabling systems – that supports rapid deployment and scalable performance. The DRIL exemplifies how innovation in physical infrastructure can accelerate hybrid cloud and AI transformation," – Koen ter Linde, Senior Vice President & President, CommScope CCS

"Through our ongoing collaboration, Lenovo and Digital Realty are helping today's businesses turn high-performance private AI into powerful outcomes. The DRIL represents a significant leap in addressing the challenges of today's AI-driven and other performance-intensive workloads across a full range of high-growth industries by offering Lenovo Neptune® liquid-cooling infrastructure. Together, we're delivering colocation-ready solutions that maximize private AI workloads while meeting advanced power and cooling requirements, expanding data center capacity and accelerating innovation around the globe," – Scott Tease, Vice President and General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions Product Group, Lenovo

"Supermicro is excited to collaborate with the DRIL which allows companies to thoroughly test and validate their workloads, ensuring that their products perform optimally on our most advanced platforms. By leveraging Supermicro servers with the latest data processing capabilities at the DRIL, it can accelerate time-to-deployment," – Cenly Chen, Chief Growth Officer, Supermicro

"Digital Realty's Innovation Lab and ServiceFabric® represent a critical step forward in enabling partners and enterprises to test, validate, and deploy their workloads and operationalize AI at scale. By eliminating the traditional barriers of distance and latency, Vcinity empowers organizations to access and act on data wherever it resides over ServiceFabric® – without compromise. As enterprises embrace AI-driven business models, data mobility and real-time accessibility are essential. Our partnership with Digital Realty ensures customers can seamlessly interconnect compute, data, and applications, globally unlocking new revenue opportunities across industries accelerating not only the speed of AI deployment, but also the time to value, helping enterprises realize and monetize their AI investments faster than ever before," – Harry Carr, Chief Executive Officer, Vcinity

"Zenlayer's participation in the DRIL allows us to showcase for our customers AI and next-gen enterprise edge apps with point-and-click connectivity, hybrid and private cloud compute, and storage solutions. This allows us to help customers streamline operations today and build a future-proof expansion strategy across APAC, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa," – Craig Kaplan, Executive Vice President, Business Growth, Americas and Europe, Zenlayer

The launch of the DRIL builds on the AI Experience Center, which was launched in 2024 with ePlus and Vertiv. This cutting-edge facility is designed to accelerate the delivery of AI outcomes and optimize AI technologies. The AI Experience Center provides a dedicated space to explore AI-centric use cases while leveraging cutting-edge AI-focused infrastructure requirements such as power, cooling, and advanced GPU resources, in addition to exploring cloud, edge, and colocation connectivity requirements of real-world AI deployments.

"The AI Experience Center has been purpose built to allow enterprises and service providers to explore, validate, and accelerate their AI initiatives with confidence. The DRIL provides a real-world proving ground that combines ePlus' deep expertise in AI strategy and infrastructure design with Digital Realty's global colocation and interconnection platform. This provides our customers with the guidance, scale, and connectivity they need to transform ideas into real-world AI solutions," said Ken Farber, President, ePlus.

"As AI adoption continues to grow, Digital Realty remains committed to providing the critical infrastructure and resources needed to support next-generation workloads. Through initiatives like the DRIL and strategic partnerships, Digital Realty is enabling enterprises to accelerate innovation, optimize performance, and drive a more connected, intelligent digital future,' added Sharp.

Digital Realty's Northern Virginia campus is the primary DRIL location, but enterprises can also test latency scenarios between this site and other remote locations. This capability allows businesses to refine cloud connectivity with ServiceFabric®, ensuring optimal performance across multiple sites. Rollout of the DRIL to other global occasions is already in progress, with London being the next to go live in early 2026.

About Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation, from cloud and digital transformation to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

For Additional Information

Media Contacts
Helen Bleasdale
Digital Realty
+1 737 267 6822
hcbleasdale@digitalrealty.com

Investor Relations
Jordan Sadler / Jim Huseby
Digital Realty
+1 415 275 5344
InvestorRelations@digitalrealty.com

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially, including statements related to the company's partnerships and expected benefits, emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, ServiceFabric®, customer demand and the company's strategy. For a list and description of risks and uncertainties, see the reports and other filings by the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

 

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SOURCE Digital Realty Trust

FAQ

What is Digital Realty's Innovation Lab (DRIL) and what does it offer?

DRIL is a real-world data center testing environment where customers can validate AI and hybrid cloud deployments. It offers high-density colocation up to 150kW per cabinet, AI infrastructure optimization, and hybrid cloud validation capabilities.

Where is Digital Realty's DRIL located and are there expansion plans?

The primary DRIL facility is located at Digital Realty's Northern Virginia campus, with plans to expand globally. The next facility will open in London in early 2026.

What companies are partnering with Digital Realty's Innovation Lab?

Key partners include AMD, Cisco, CommScope, Lenovo, Supermicro, Vcinity, and Zenlayer, providing various technologies and infrastructure solutions.

How does Digital Realty's DRIL support AI workloads?

DRIL supports AI workloads through high-density colocation, AI infrastructure optimization via the ePlus AI Experience Center, and AI workload orchestration across Digital Realty's Private AI Exchange (AIPx).

What is ServiceFabric® and how does it integrate with DRIL?

ServiceFabric® is Digital Realty's global interconnection and orchestration platform that enables customers to test latency scenarios and seamlessly connect to cloud and network providers through cross connects.