Moving towards the concept of green datacenters, Alibaba Cloud aims to run its global data centers entirely on clean energy by 2030, starting with upgrades to five of its hyper-scale data centers in China. It employs cutting-edge green technologies, of which liquid cooling and renewable electricity storage help the most in reducing carbon emissions.
“Eco-friendly data centers are critical to Alibaba’s sustainable operations. Liquid cooling will be promoted throughout China and in more countries in the future. In our Hangzhou data center, server clusters are submerged in specialized liquid coolant, which quickly chills the IT hardware. We are looking at carbon management tools to help us better take advantage of energy trading schemes while also planning a more stable energy supply”, said Shanyuan Gao, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure’s Internet Data Center Division.
Alibaba launched its proprietary chip, Yitian 710, to further cut down electricity use. Each chip can accommodate up to 60 billion transistors and gives a 50% higher energy efficiency ratio compared with other models. As a result, it reduces demand for unpredictable solar and wind energy sources and makes transitioning to clean energy easier.
Why green datacenters?
With the ever-growing dependency on the Internet, the requirement for setting up new datacenters has increased. However, datacenters are extremely dependent on electricity and cannot afford outages. Hence, power consumption by data centers is very high. Considering the resulting environmental impact, public awareness, and higher cost of energy, companies are taking initiatives to follow a green policy. Hence, datacenters are adopting a sustainable model which has become essential in an environmental and business aspect.
Some ways how datacenters can move towards sustainability
- Servers and cooling systems account for the majority of the energy usage in data centers. So, using ultra-efficient cooling systems, like free-cooling technologies and liquid cooling designs, is an effective way to make data centers greener and more sustainable.
- Using edge computing with IoT improves energy efficiency. Edge leverages the processing power of connected IoT devices. Edge datacenters reduce latency and the amount of data traversing the network as it is located closer to customers. This can help companies reduce their carbon footprint along with improving performance and user experience.
- Using AI programs to optimize performance and improve energy efficiency is another way to reduce power consumption. AI-based predictive analytics will help anticipate threats, predict energy consumption needs and take necessary measures to optimize sustainable energy solutions.
Also read: Infrastructure status of data centres set to spur investments in India
