The Digital Realty Innovation Lab (DRIL), located at the company’s Northern Virginia campus, provides “a fully supported, real-world data centre testing environment” where customers can “bring their own workloads or leverage pre-configured infrastructure to validate AI and hybrid cloud-deployments before scaling,” the company stated.
The lab also allows existing customers to configure and validate workloads in a production-like setting and lets new clients replicate a representative architecture.
As a result, the move enables realistic, low-risk testing without impacting production systems.
Meanwhile, it also connects directly to cloud and network providers through ServiceFabric, Digital Realty’s global interconnection and orchestration platform.
Digital Realty, CTO, Chris Sharp, said: "Innovation isn't optional – it's a competitive requirement in a world where data volumes and AI adoption are accelerating.
"Yet, many enterprises still deploy complex infrastructure without the ability to test, validate, or optimise 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."
The launch is also being backed by partners including AMD, Cisco, Lenovo, Supermicro, CommScope, Zenlayer, Vcinity and ePlus, the company revealed.
Cisco senior vice president and general manager of data centres and digital infrastructure, Kevin Wollenweber, said: "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.”
AMD corporate VP of architecture and strategy, data centre solutions group, Robert Hormuth, added: “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.”
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