SWEDEN’S DATA

CENTRES ARE
ON THE RISE
PHOTO CREDIT: PÄR BÄCKSTRÖM
 ON
THE
RISE
WRITTEN BY: FRAN ROBERTS
PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN
RISE SICS AB is the leading research institute
for applied information and communication
technology in Sweden. Tor Björn Minde, CEO
of RISE SICS North, describes the Institute’s
new research data centre, located in Luleå
R
ISE SICS North is a new
subsidiary of RISE SICS,
established in Luleå. “It’s like
the Swedish Fraunhofer. There are
other countries that also have their
own research institute organisations,”
notes Tor Björn Minde, CEO of RISE
SICS North. “Here it’s called RISE –
Research Institutes of Sweden.”
The SICS part of the Institute’s
name stands for Swedish Institute of
Computer Science, whilst the north
references its location in Luleå, around
an hour drive from the Arctic Circle.
Minde’s work at RISE SICS North
is only part of what he does. “I work
at Ericsson, the telecom company
where I had my 30th anniversary last
year. My current position is Head of
Research Strategies. Part-time I’m
loaned out to this organisation, which
I’m running as a CEO,” he observes.
Originally focused on mobile audio,
Minde transitioned into computing
4
activities, which later facilitated his
heading up of RISE SICS North. “The
nascent activity in Ericsson is called
Ericsson Labs and that took me over
to more computer platforms and now
data centres,” Minde comments.
“So, that’s the background of why
I’m CEO of this research institute.”
Continuous expansion
RISE SICS North was formed around
the creation of a new research data
centre in Luleå. “We have projects
on cloud platforms, hardware and
software for big data analytics. All of
that we run in our two-modules-large
data centre,” advises Minde. “We have
200KW installed right now and we are
continuously expanding, so we will add
another 150KW during this autumn.
“We call it ICE and ICE stands for
infrastructure and cloud research
environment. So, we cover both
infrastructure and the software
 TECHNOLOGY

PHOTO CREDIT: PÄR BÄCKSTRÖM

Module 1
enclosure
 RISE SICS

Module
2 Inauguration
party in the
ICE facility
PHOTO CREDIT: PÄR BÄCKSTRÖM

Tor Bjorn Minde

CEO
Tor Björn Minde is currently head of research strategy at Ericsson Research with 30
years’ experience in ICT research. He has research management experience leading
industry research teams, sections and sector research areas. He holds an adjunct
professorship at Lulea University of Technology in systems technology and has been
involved in many academic research projects. He is part of LTU technology faculty
board and also a board member of Norrbotten research council.
His main research interests are audio, geo, sensor, context aware,
machine learning and data center technologies. He led the team
behind Ericsson Labs with the objective to improve Ericsson ability
in open innovation and network exposure. Ericsson Labs operated
a server infrastructure with network functionality offering on-line
experimental API's, Application Programming Interfaces. 
Lately his main focus has been on cloud infrastructures for
energy efficient operation. He has around 20 publications in
various conferences and workshops and more than 40 filed patents
in the field of signal processing and applications since 1989.
Tor Björn is currently CEO of RISE SICS North AB and working
as the manager for the large-scale research infrastructure facility
build-up project. He will lead the initiative and implement
the vision of a large-scale data center facility to
support Swedish industry and academia.

application platforms.” At ICE, clients
can test their innovations in a risk-
free environment with the added
service of being able to measure
hundreds of environmental factors.
Pioneering projects
Despite being established just 18
months ago, much progress has
already been made by RISE SICS
North. “We are now at €1.8mn a year
in turnover and we have 11 persons
right now that work here,” notes
Minde. “Our scientific leader is Jon
w w w. s i c s . s e / g ro u p s / r i s e - s i c s - n o r t h
S U P P LY C H A I N
“If you can
have a self-
driving car,
why can’t you
have a self-
driving data
centre?”
– Tor Bjorn Minde, CEO,
RISE SICS North
Summers. He is from the University
of Leeds – he started up Data Centre
Alliance and is behind the Data Centre
Transformation Conferences.”
At present the facility is working on four
major projects. “There is one project
on data centre automation. If you can
have a self-driving car, why can’t you
have a self-driving data centre?” Minde
comments. “The machine learning
algorithm already can perform lots
of activities, complex identification
problems much better than humans.
“The long-term mission is to come
7
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to autonomous data centres, but to
get there you need to really measure
and model data centres correctly.
You need to have a data collection
software tool chain and database
and you need to have all the tools in
place for the sensors. The project is
about trying to understand how to
make the data centre autonomous
and how to optimise the holistic view
on automation – it’s
a very big project
with Ericsson and
ABB involved.
“We have one project
about how to use
natural convection
11Number of
and draught in data Employees at
centres so you can RISE SICS North
reduce the fan use.
It’s a real thermodynamic project,”
continues Minde. “The third project is
to look into how a data centre can be
a part of the smart grid in the future. A
data centre has lots of battery, it has
a water tank for cooling and it has an
intrinsic possibility to be a big battery. It do a slab floor or a raised floor. We
can then be a load balancer in the grid.
“The fourth project is really about
using analytics in new applications, so
w w w. s i c s . s e / g ro u p s / r i s e - s i c s - n o r t h
TECHNOLOGY
that it’s beyond big data at an analytics
level,” Minde explains. “We have some
pre-studies on heat reuse and liquid
cooling and we hope to expand them.
We’re looking into drying wood and
also liquid cooling. So that is what the
data centre is used for – different types
of projects to understand how you can
create better data centres in the future.”
Head in the cloud
The first module of the
data centre, a room-in-
room module, has been
running since February
2016. “This first module
is used for big data
analytics, it’s used for
some cloud applications
and that is running in
the servers. We have 200 servers there,
some GPU [graphics processing unit]
accelerated,” Minde advises. “Then we
use the data centre to do modelling.”
“The second module is more a
lab and we have built it so we can
can change equipment easily with
much bigger doors and we can
move equipment in and out. We can
9
RISE SICS
exchange coolers and racks, we can
exchange lots of different equipment
there. Module three, that we’re going
to install this autumn, will be an open
computer lab,” Minde explains.
Outside the modules the space
will be used for smaller experiments
in a wind tunnel, a cube for
thermodynamics, a water tank, solar
panels on the roof and renewable
energy storage. All to be built during
the autumn. On the roof there is also
a cooling tower that will be used.
A collaborative network
In order to work on such a number
of projects, RISE SICS North is
collaborating with several partners.
“The companies are Ericsson, of
course, and ABB are involved.
Additionally, there is Vattenfall,
the power company, and Swegon,
the ventilation company,” advises
Minde. “EON is another power
company involved, alongside a
number of smaller companies
like Acon, Metria, Eitech, BnearIT,
ArctosLabs, Netrounds.
“We also collaborate with
Facebook, it’s first European data
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centre is being located just next door.
Facebook has donated equipment
to the research data centre, and
plans are in the making for setting up
projects together,” explains Minde.
“Another important partner is the
Luleå University of Technology. We
have only been around for one and
a half years, so we will expand the
number of companies involved, but
we have counted the companies
we count as being part of our
network, and it’s nearly 60-plus.”
Increased integration
Looking ahead, the holistic view
of the data centre will become
increasingly important for RISE SICS
North. “The whole system needs to
be much more integrated to make it
optimised. It seems to me that some
parts of the data centre industry are
very conservative – they do what
they always have done. If you need
redundancy, you hit the solution with a
diesel engine and that is not the future
– we need to find other ways to do
redundancy. That’s why we’re around,
to challenge the way data centres
are built,” acknowledges Minde.
 TECHNOLOGY

Control/
management
works space in
the data center
w w w. s i c s . s e / g ro u p s / r i s e - s i c s - n o r t h 11
PHOTO CREDIT: PÄR BÄCKSTRÖM
RISE SICS NORTH
BJÖRKSKATALEDEN 112 (F.D. TRAKTORVÄGEN 1)
LULEÅ 973 47
T +46 70 624 29 59 E INFO-NORTH@RI.SE
WWW.SICS.SE/GROUPS/RISE-SICS-NORTH