Can Data Centers Be Built Sustainably?

by Sharon Kits Kimathi (Reuters) ... Just last month, the European Commission proposed rules requiring data centers in Europe to disclose how efficiently they use energy and water and proposed a rating scheme for facilities to incentivize companies to build more resource-efficient data centers.

Meanwhile, Australia's Victoria state proposed that new data centers in the region will have to secure their own renewable energy supply and storage and bear the connection costs and network upgrades.

Over in New South Wales, the state developed its own framework and guidelines for data centers requiring a minimum 40% wind generation component, storage capacity of at least 25% of generation capacity over a four-hour duration and agreements of at least 10 years’ duration.

Where recycled water is unavailable, companies must negotiate a plan with their water utility to fully offset interim potable water use.

A UK government spokesperson said that new data center developments must be considered through the current planning system which includes local community and environment assessments as well as using "AI Growth Zones to support data centre development in areas with access to clean energy."

The US, the largest data center hub globally, has conflicting methods of dealing with the rise of ⁠data centers.

The Senate blocked legislation requiring state utility regulators to consider whether large electricity users, including data centers, should bear the incremental costs of power infrastructure built to serve them and thus ease the burden on households.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in 16 states are considering banning their development, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In fact, most US voters think President Donald Trump's administration and Congress are not taking the risks of AI seriously enough and want the government to write new regulations for the technology, according to a six-day opinion poll by Reuters/Ipsos.

It is worth noting that 56% of voters in the Reuters/Ipsos poll back limits on building data centers, including 69% of Democrats, 55% of independents and 43% of Republicans. Click here for the full poll results.

Brandon Oyer, head of energy & water for the Americas at Amazon Web Services (AWS) said that the company now uses air cooling 90% of the year in all of its operations globally.

Oyer said that the method allows AWS to limit the number of hours that it uses any water, and that it leans on sewer water “that nobody else would want to use if it's available in the community” which is a recycled water method being applied in 26 facilities, with 130 more coming online later this year.

We also spoke about the challenges in investing in startups ‌that do have ⁠sustainable solutions as they are hard to scale up to fit in such a huge operation as AWS. READ MORE