How can the carbon footprint of data centers be reduced? Experts answer – CNN Economic

At a time when Saudi Arabia is seeking to develop and attract data centers throughout its territory, and with its hosting of the Data Centers and Cloud Infrastructure Summit, fears are emerging that these centers will lead to a significant increase in global carbon emissions. What is the solution to reduce these emissions?

Iyad Al-Amri, chief strategy officer at data center manufacturer and power generation company Datavolt, says that there are two fronts that must be addressed in order to reduce carbon emissions, which are operational efficiency and renewable energy.

In terms of efficiency, competent authorities should find efficient cooling and power solutions and appropriate design that can reduce the amount of energy needed to operate data centers.

As for renewable energy, we must switch to solar energy, wind energy, or even to hydrogen or batteries. Al-Amiri adds that this is not impossible, as Saudi Arabia today is working to supply entire cities with renewable energy, such as the Red Sea project.

Datavolt is working to build the new generation of sustainable data centers according to its future vision.

The opinion of the Director of Technical Systems at Pandit Company, Zakaria Pafias, agrees with Al-Amiri’s opinion, as he considers that methods to improve and control emissions caused by data centers are at the design stage and choosing the appropriate equipment in terms of information technology to avoid excessive size, given the tendency among people to be on the side. Security.

The appropriate location must be chosen in close proximity to renewable energy centers, and the cooling must be designed efficiently to reduce the additional energy required to cool the data center.

Reasons for the increase in data center emissions

Data centers consume 2.5 to 3 percent of the world’s production capacity, and this percentage is expected to increase over time, according to Al-Amiri.

He added that the increase in data and the growth of data centers through the move to 4G and 5G networks and other data applications, the use cases of artificial intelligence and the growing uses of artificial intelligence across various institutions, and also the growth of what is known as the cloud, the public cloud and the private cloud, will increase the need for additional data centers and the demand will also increase. On power in cell data centers, which would rise from three kilowatts per hour to 40 or 50 kilowatts.

Pavias adds that when you increase energy consumption in a data center, this naturally leads to increased cooling requirements to maintain appropriate environmental conditions, which leads to the generation of a large amount of carbon dioxide.