Digital investment in Ireland at risk due to data centre regulation

A seminar on Ireland’s energy future will discuss how regulation and infrastructural challenges in energy are negatively impacting economic growth in Ireland.

Taking place on Wednesday 2 April and hosted by Engineers Ireland’s Energy, Environment, and Climate Action Division, The Merging Energy Landscape  A Pivotal Shift in Industry to Address the Carbon Budget Challenge Seminar, will also highlight the challenges businesses face to reduce emissions, the pressure on industry to meet targets, and the impact on the environment and economy if we fall short.

Speakers at the seminar will include Ciara Ahern, senior lecturer of Building Engineering, TU Dublin and Peter Lantry, Managing Director, Ireland, Equinix a global data centre provider.

According to Ciara Ahern: “The future of smart buildings lies in their ability to act as flexible demand assets within our evolving energy systems. Yet, there is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be. This seminar will explore how emerging guidelines, scalable solutions, and digital infrastructure can enable buildings to participate in energy markets—reducing carbon emissions and enhancing grid resilience while facilitating greater penetration of renewable energy.”

Equinix owns 268 data centres globally, including four retail colocation facilities and 2 xScale facilities in Dublin. Peter Lantry will discuss the need for Ireland to address existing barriers to further digital investment if the country is to avoid missing crucial economic opportunities. “Ireland, especially Dublin, has successfully attracted digital services companies, including data centres, over the past 40 years. The challenge now is how to keep pace with other tech nations amid energy distribution and supply issues that have deterred data centre development, which impacts Ireland’s economy.”

Additional speakers at the seminar will include Conor Minogue, Senior Executive at IBEC discussing the business case for meeting climate action targets, and Heidi Duffy, Operations Environmental and Sustainability Manager at Iarnród Éireann, sharing insights on the challenges and solutions to the transition to sustainable public transport.

This event will take place in Engineers Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Tickets are available at www.engineersireland.ie or by following this link.

Audio Pioneer xMEMS Accelerates Global Growth with Launch of New Seminar Series: xMEMS Live – China 2023

Semiconductor pioneer xMEMS Labs today announced the launch of xMEMS Live – China 2023, a two-day seminar aimed at demonstrating the company’s ongoing support for Chinese consumer tech and audio brands through product demos, keynotes and in-depth tech-talk presentations that will take place on September 18th at the Renaissance Caohejing Hotel in Shanghai and on September 20th at the Westin Nanshan in Shenzhen. 

The announcement comes at a time when xMEMS is accelerating its global expansion to provide a growing customer base with advanced solid-state MEMS speakers for integration into True Wireless Stereo (TWS), In-Ear Monitor (IEM), hearing assistance and other personal audio devices. The seminar will feature xMEMS’ executives and engineering leaders who will review best practices for achieving end-product design success with xMEMS’ ground-breaking Solid-State Fidelity Solutions. 

“xMEMS is reinventing the way people experience sound through the world’s only all-silicon, monolithic MEMS micro speakers for personal audio products,” said Mike Housholder, VP of Marketing and Business Development of xMEMS. “With its dynamic tech ecosystem and strong audio manufacturing base, China represents a significant growth opportunity for the company as we continue to scale. xMEMS Live – China 2023 is an extraordinary way to engage with the brightest minds in this robust market to fully capitalize on our growth potential and solidify xMEMS’ position as the world leader in silicon-based MEMS speaker technology.”

xMEMS’ patented silicon-based speaker technology is slated to replace century-old coil speakers, allowing for high-volume, reliable mass production of solid-state speakers using semiconductor fabrication methods and resulting in more precise, higher fidelity, high-resolution audio.

Unlike conventional coil speakers, xMEMS speakers are monolithic with silicon membranes which offer 95x better material stiffness, leading to improved clarity and eliminating the muddy midrange and treble response created by traditional speaker membrane materials.

The silicon architecture also operates with a 150x faster impulse response compared with conventional speakers to allow for the most pulse-true and accurate sound reproduction, which is not possible with the slow attack and decay of coil architectures. 

Following its first product collaboration with Creative Technologies, a TWS earbud manufacturer in Singapore, xMEMS is continuing to accelerate customer momentum in key markets around the world, with new customer announcements slated for later this year. 

“As manufacturers try to stand out in the market and streamline their production efforts, xMEMS is uniquely positioned to deliver exceptional sound quality, comfort, and style to consumers, while our customers benefit from the inherent efficiencies unlocked by our world-first solid state semiconductor manufacturing process, which delivers a better sounding speaker with far greater production efficiency and product uniformity,” Housholder concluded.