In an era where digital connectivity underpins daily life, data centres stand as the unsung heroes, silently powering everything from online banking to streaming services. Equinix with permission Recently, Tomie Tran, a technician at Equinix, unlocked a server cage in digital infrastructure’s largest data hall. Inside, he found a stunning sight – acres of computers that manage, process and deliver terabits of information. Yet despite their importance, these facilities have one of the biggest challenges in sustainability and energy used.
Equinix’s 18 data centres throughout Australia, for example, each facility is built like a fortress, its white halls lined with clusters of servers, secured in cages. Climate change Bruce McNicoll, the site’s senior manager, pointed out one of the standby diesel generators. This slide-in generator provides safe, quiet, reliable power during any blackout. This second reliance on backup systems raises the industry’s immediate, and justified, fears over energy security as demand continues to grow.
Guy Danskine, managing director of Equinix Australia, underscored how essential data centres are to daily life. He mentioned that if this morning when you woke up you checked your internet banking and checked the weather, you may have streamed a movie or caught up on your favorite program during your commute. Each of these activities hinged on data that was generated from one or several of the data hubs.
The Growing Demand for Energy
Those predictions hold true, and the demand for energy in data centres is predicted to increase exponentially in the next few years. Morgan Stanley’s estimates see these facilities contributing 8 percent of the country’s electricity in the power grid by 2030. They are counting on big output from these renewable energy technologies. In fact, this increase has been almost exclusively propelled by the pending explosion of personal data consumption and cloud computing. Danskine remarked on the rapid evolution of technology, noting that “Nobody could have forecast a couple of things that have really grown pretty dramatically: personal data consumption — just what you can do on your phone now is extraordinarily capable; cloud computing has continued to grow; and now we have this next wave of generative AI.”
While the need is increasing, this rapidly growing demand creates significant challenges to sustainability. Gordon Noble, research director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, underlined this in his vivid observation. He stressed that the data centre industry is failing to scale renewable energy rapidly enough to meet its escalating demands. He stated, “We think we can just have as much data as we want. I think that economic concept of scarcity needs to become part of the conversation.”
Noble’s research indicates a troubling trend: as regions like California experience increased water stress, the water consumption required for cooling these facilities becomes a growing concern. The equilibrium between our growing energy needs and our concern for the environment is proving harder to strike.
The Challenge of Sustainability
Data centres are coming under pressure around operational efficiencies, not just energy consumption. Bruce McNicoll underscored how important clean environments are for data centers. As he put it, “Dirt is the enemy of a data centre.” Dust, dirt, and metal filings can short out electronic equipment or spill into the path of air circulating fans, dramatically lowering efficiency.
Exacerbating these operational challenges appears to be a more fundamental problem with how energy is sourced. The debate over renewable energy has reached a fever pitch. Companies like Google and Microsoft have inked agreements to run their data centers on nuclear energy. To underscore just how urgent the situation is, Danskine framed the energy security conversation in the context of competitiveness to develop AI technology. Right now, security of energy is a big one for our industry,” he said. I was [recently] in the US. Considered an ‘energy emergency’ over there…you’re talking about needing a ton and a half of energy.
Noble cautioned that “There is not enough energy projects developed, announced, funded today that will meet demand. So, we need to accelerate that.” This urgency is driven by increasing recognition that without swift action it will be harder and perhaps impossible to meet our future energy needs.
Future Prospects and Innovations
As stakeholders from every corner of the industry face these obstacles, new and creative solutions are being developed and implemented to bolster sustainability initiatives. Equinix has committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, which should create a ripple effect through the industry and encourage other data center companies to follow suit. Reaching this goal will require significant progress from both tech and infrastructure.
Noble pointed out that if renewable energy is diverted towards AI development, it may hinder efforts to decarbonize other parts of the economy. He warned, “If all the renewable energy goes into AI, it’s not going into decarbonising different parts of the economy.”
The question remains: how can the data centre industry balance its burgeoning energy demands with sustainable practices? PUE Bruce McNicoll of the non-profit Cheyenne Connect identified a fundamental fallacy in PUE, the widely-used industry metric to gauge energy efficiency. Data centres are in critical need of better strategies – or ‘plays’ – for using energy more efficiently.
