Microsoft ramped up its commitments at present to preserve water and vitality in its knowledge facilities, laying out new cooling tech and techniques that would push notoriously thirsty and vitality hungry servers previous their present limits. The corporate’s newest environmental pledge comes because it plans to dramatically develop the variety of knowledge facilities it operates all over the world, a transfer that would put extra stress on drought-stricken communities until the corporate finds methods to make use of much less water.
Microsoft plans to slash the quantity of water its knowledge facilities use by 95 p.c by 2024, with the purpose of “finally” eliminating water use. That builds on a dedication it made final 12 months to change into “water optimistic” by the tip of the last decade, which means it will replenish extra water than it makes use of for its operations. In 2020, Microsoft additionally dedicated to changing into carbon adverse by the identical deadline, which means it plans to attract down and retailer extra planet-heating CO2 than it releases.
Microsoft additionally introduced different sustainability efforts at present that would decrease greenhouse fuel emissions inside and outdoors the corporate. It’s on the lookout for constructing supplies for its knowledge facilities which can be much less carbon-intensive, together with analysis into bricks made with algae and structural tubes made with mushrooms. It additionally previewed a brand new instrument known as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which might help organizations monitor their carbon dioxide emissions.
However the huge dedication includes the info facilities. Knowledge facilities like Microsoft’s are filled with servers which allow individuals to retailer information, ship messages, and store and sport on-line. All of that exercise makes use of up a variety of vitality and generates warmth. Overheating can have an effect on servers’ efficiency and reliability, however blasting them with air con drives up electrical energy use and greenhouse fuel emissions. It’s potential to make use of water to chill down servers, however water has change into an more and more scarce useful resource in lots of the arid locations the place knowledge facilities function.
A typical knowledge middle makes use of about as a lot water as a metropolis with a inhabitants of about 30,000 to 40,000 individuals, or about 3 to five million gallons of water a day, says Venkatesh Uddameri, professor and director of the Water Assets Heart at Texas Tech College. Microsoft tells The Verge that its knowledge facilities use much less water than that, though it varies throughout completely different areas and climates.
Microsoft’s knowledge facilities at the moment use adiabatic cooling, which depends on exterior air to chill down temperatures inside. It’s a system that makes use of much less electrical energy than air con and fewer water than cooling towers. However when temperatures rise above 85 levels Celsius, exterior air isn’t very useful. At that time, an evaporative cooling system kicks in, which makes use of water. It really works like a “swamp cooler” — cooling the air by pushing it over or by means of water-soaked screens.
Microsoft at present revealed two primary methods it plans to lean on to satisfy its water conservation objectives. First: it researched how its servers carry out below increased temperatures, and located that it could set increased limits for when the facilities’ evaporative cooling methods kick in. In cooler elements of the world — together with Amsterdam, Dublin, Virginia, and Chicago — these increased set factors might, over the subsequent few years, do away with the necessity for water fully.
However Microsoft’s knowledge facilities in desert areas, the place water shortage is an even bigger drawback, will seemingly proceed to guzzle water for years longer. Microsoft says the identical technique which may remove water use in Amsterdam and Dublin would solely cut back water consumption in desert areas by as a lot as 60 p.c by 2024.
That’s the place the second a part of Microsoft’s plan is available in. To get its water footprint all the way down to zero in these sizzling and dry climates, Microsoft plans to show to a brand new method to cool servers: submerging them in fluorocarbon-based liquid baths. Because the servers work away, the warmth they generate causes the liquid to boil when it reaches 122 levels Fahrenheit (50 levels Celsius). The boiling liquid strikes warmth away from the servers after which turns right into a vapor that rises. The vapor hits a cooled tank lid, condenses, and rains again into the bathtub. The method, known as two-phase liquid immersion, creates a closed-loop cooling system that cuts down on water and electrical energy use whereas eliminating warmth. It’s a technique that the corporate says was impressed by cryptocurrency miners, who additionally use enormous quantities of vitality and have turned to liquid immersion cooling for computing gear.
Whereas specialists The Verge spoke to say the expertise is promising, they are saying getting it to work at scale will likely be one other problem. Microsoft simply introduced its first trial run with immersion cooling in April and says this expertise continues to be within the analysis and growth stage. Only a few knowledge facilities — most likely fewer than 2 p.c — depend on immersion cooling, based on Lucas Beran, principal analyst on the market analysis agency Dell’Oro Group.
“You additionally take into consideration the dimensions of somebody like Microsoft deploying the quantity of knowledge facilities that they’re constructing and the quantity of compute they’re deploying — that’s a large provide chain swap. That’s a large operation swap,” Beran says. Microsoft should research and plan for a way that change will have an effect on knowledge middle efficiency and prepare employees to work in new environments, he factors out. “It’s a really giant enterprise, however one which has some extraordinarily optimistic potential outcomes.”
Microsoft tells The Verge it should take a phased method to rolling out its new cooling methods for knowledge facilities. Immersion cooling would require new, specifically designed servers, and Microsoft will watch for its server configurations to age out earlier than changing them in present knowledge facilities. Even the plethora of latest knowledge facilities the corporate has deliberate will seemingly first be constructed with hybrid cooling methods because it transitions to new immersion expertise.
Microsoft plans to construct 50 to 100 new knowledge facilities a 12 months to maintain up with demand for its cloud providers. World web visitors is anticipated to double by subsequent 12 months, it says. That’s an enormous alternative for the corporate, but additionally an enormous problem to the corporate’s new sustainability objectives.
Tensions have risen, for instance, round knowledge facilities in Arizona, the place Microsoft opened up a brand new one this 12 months. After federal authorities declared the primary water scarcity on the Colorado River in August, Arizona faces imminent cuts to its water provide. The cuts, up to now, will primarily restrict water for agriculture, however some residents are anxious that new knowledge facilities within the area will solely intensify competitors for already scarce water sources.
The corporate might want to handle points distinctive to every location the place it builds a knowledge middle and pay particular consideration to locations below extra water stress. “There is no such thing as a one-size-fits all sort of resolution,” says Uddameri. “You possibly can change into water optimistic as an organization, but it surely’s not helpful when you save all of the water in a single location, as an excessive case, and also you create greater deficits elsewhere.”
