Hello @timk11
We are currently offboarding four DCs that were a unique situation where DFINITY owned the servers, but other NPs were running the operations of the nodes. We are not continuing that model, so these four DCs are being offloaded. Three of the DCs worth are being converted for our internal use, and the fourth DCs servers were part of our auction.
This thread disuccesses the voted-in terms under which some Gen-1 NPs (including ourself) will be reducing and offboarding some of their nodes. To my knowledge, all of them have found private buyers for those nodes (as we did) who will bring those nodes back up on the IC, so that the IC node count does not shrink by any more than the 3 DCs mentioned above.
Remember… Gen-1 NPs signed up and began their DC contracts before Genesis, as the IC had to be set up and tested on these nodes in order to launch, and it took time. Their 48 months started when the DC building began on their DCs, so there was always a delay between that start point and when the nodes in that DC actually were up and running and visible in the dashboard.
The NPs in the situation mentioned above and two more larger NPs are reaching the end of their 48 months this month. They were the first DCs that we used for starting the IC (after our own Zurich DC). All the rest of Gen-1 NPs will reach their 48 months at the end of January. According to the terms described in this thread (and the wiki here). Those list the steps that they and the buyer will have to follow, along with the proposals they will have to make. So each of the NPs who has more than 42 nodes will make a post in that forum thread announcing which DC they are keeping and which they are selling to another buyer and who that buyer is, so there will be a handful more of these sets of proposals by the end of the year.
I hope this answers some of your questions!