GCRI · Fields across the Consortium
Data and compute
Data and compute have become infrastructure: the capacity to train and run models, store and move data and keep them secure is concentrated, energy-intensive and a dependency for science, government and finance.
01Three mandates
The field, seen three ways.
GRF
Governance and dialogue
No platform yet in this field.
GRA
Financial understanding
No platform yet in this field.
02The systemic question
Concentration, energy and sovereignty.
Advanced chips come from a short supply chain; hyperscale capacity sits with a few providers in a few regions; data-centre growth is changing electricity demand forecasts and water use where it clusters. For public institutions the questions are continuity of access, jurisdiction over data, and the energy and water footprint of the services they depend on.
- Power usage effectiveness and water usage effectiveness as site-level metrics.
- Data residency and lawful access across jurisdictions.
- Supply of accelerators and the export-control environment around them.
03Frameworks
Metrics and governance.
| Framework or body | What it governs or supplies |
|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 30134 series | Key performance indicators for data centres, including power usage effectiveness |
| FAIR principles | Findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data |
| NIST CSF 2.0 and ISO/IEC 27001 | Security of compute and data services |
| Global Digital Compact | Intergovernmental commitments on data governance and digital cooperation |
04Couplings
Compute’s dependencies and dependants.
- Energy: grid connection and load growth.
- AI: capability tied to compute.
- Water: cooling demand in water-stressed areas.
The science sits on Data and Compute; methods start from computing.
05Grounding
The methods behind the field.
- High-performance, cloud and edge computing
- Data engineering, interoperability and stewardship
- Geospatial information systems
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning
- Systems engineering
- Software and safety-critical systems engineering
- AI evaluation and assurance engineering
- Probability and statistics
- Cybersecurity and cryptography
- Social and behavioural science
- Robotics and automation
- Energy generation, storage and grid technology
- Optimisation and operations research
- Physics and quantum science
- Power systems engineering
06Sources
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
07Questions
Questions and answers.
Why does GCRI host field gateways?
GCRI hosts the shared references of the Consortium, including the STEM Commons and the field gateways, so each field has one place that links all three institutions’ work.
ReportsContribute
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
GCRI
- EmailGateway GW-GCRISend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Reports community there. Curators review it; the DOI stays yours.
- ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation
Bring a method, a dataset or a question.
Information and enquiries are open today. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.
Legal
Legal documents.
Maps, data and figures on this site are shown for context and general information. They are not advice, forecasts or warnings; the limits of the information are set out in the Disclaimers and Data Notices.