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PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO ENGINEERING A SUSTAINABLE DATA CENTER AND MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF EXISTING TECHNOLOGY

The information and communication technology ( ICT ) industry enables sustainable development by making the global economy less energy-intensive . The wave of digitalization that swooped the world over the last two decades enabled an increase in economic productivity and energy efficiency . In fact , the American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy ( ACEEE ) estimated that for every 1kW of energy consumed by the IT sector , 10kW are saved in other sectors .

The backbone of the digital economy is the global network of data centers . During a wave of huge growth in compute demand between 2010 and 2020 , the data center industry maintained stable energy consumption of approximately 200TWhs per year – a considerable achievement . With demand for AI applications through the roof , the data center industry doubled its power consumption in 2023 , exceeding 400TWh based on Omdia data points .

The IT industry is also having to invest in an overwhelming amount of new IT infrastructure , optimized for the creation ( training ) and running ( inference / generation ) of AI models . To satisfy the unprecedented demand for AI , the data center industry cannot rely only on new power generation and will need to find power savings within existing facilities . This compelled us to focus this report on the environmental aspects of the industry ’ s effort to reduce its carbon footprint .

Introduction

Many data center operators have already deployed robust carbon emissions reporting processes – for example ,

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Equinix , Digital Realty , and Cloudfront . Analyzing these companies ’ data has helped us establish a rule of thumb on the environmental impact of various factors related to data center operations . Carbon emissions reporting , or greenhouse gas accounting , consists of scopes 1 through 3 . Scope 1 emissions stem from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization , such as onsite diesel generators , refrigerant leakage , fire suppression discharge , and maintenance vehicles , among others . Scope 2 emissions stem from the production of electricity and chilled water that data center operators purchase . Scope 3 emissions stem from the carbon emitted from the production of purchased equipment , goods , and services . This includes the transportation of equipment to the site and emissions arising from equipment retirement . It also includes emissions from employee commuting and business travel . �

Publication date : July 2024

Vladimir Galabov

24 www . intelligentdatacentres . com