I am starting a new data center operator company. I have found the perfect location and think it's possible.<p>Which types of servers and services should I begin with? Where should I buy server hardware from? CPU only or servers with GPUs for AI LLMs? How would you launch a new data center business today to complete with Amazon and Alphabet?
How are you going to be different from all the competition? Why would someone want to do business with you instead of them?<p>Figure that out first, and build out to maximize that. If you're dirt cheap; then you might want to consider buying used hardware and offering "VMs" that're anonymous and easy to provision.<p>If you've got a secure location perhaps you could capitalize on that by not buying hardware at all; but hosting your customers racks black box style. Rent rack space instead of servers.<p>How many network peers at what tiers do you have? can you reach out and touch the whole world in 20ns or less from your location? that might justify spending big to keep your latency low in your switching and get intimate with routing daemons.<p>And so on. Build on your advantages.
Better compete with small hosting companies, not trillion dollar companies. In today's news: "Amazon's AWS to invest over $5 bln to boost cloud computing in Mexico".<p>Find a niche, something where you can ask for a premium price. GPU-for-AI sounds good, that will allow you to become expert and makes marketing much easier. Lately I see "where to host my LLM" type questions on hackernews like <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39273121">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39273121</a>