Part of EE Times’ Improving Tech for Power Efficiency Special Report
Up until recently, the majority of companies did not care about their energy consumption and environmental impact. With the exception of large energy users and well-respected publicly traded companies Zero-carbon targets were not an element of the majority of companies agendas.
A new report The report from EY shows the fact that data centers are using a huge quantity of power. The Covid-19 epidemic has prompted an increase in the necessity to transfer data digitally. Hybrid work that includes unified communications is pushing more data to the cloud. In the present the information and communication technology (ICT) sector is responsible for 7 percent of all electricity consumed globally according to EY’s report. Numerous forecasts predict an exponential growth in data usage and the possibility for ICT to increase to 14 percent of the world’s emissions in 2040.
” Data centers are energy-intensive, using an estimated 200 terawatt-hours each year–more than the national energy consumption of Iran,” according to the report. “The power requirements for emerging technologies are high and growing.”
The increase in energy prices in the past two years has attracted the attention of major companies. The present energy crisis, made worse due to regional wars, have brought the cost of electricity and other types of energy at their highest level in the past 100 years. This is currently the main reason driving companies to improve their processes and cut down on electricity consumption.
Chips that use power-sipping boost performance
Some of the biggest cloud providers as well as other hyperscalers are beginning to replace servers based on 86x by Arm-based ones. The Arm RISC architecture, widely used in mobile devices, delivers huge power savings as well as often it improves performance.
Arm collaborates with various hyperscalers to develop new processors to boost the processing speed and bandwidth while cutting down on the power consumption. One of the examples that was cited by Mohamed Awad, SVP and general director for infrastructure and services within Arm the company, includes Amazon AWS and its Graviton processors. The second generation of Amazon’s Graviton processors, Graviton 2 was launched in December of 2019 and offers 40% more performance and price than the M5 version of the same generation C5 or R5 instance, and decreases power consumption by 72 percent.
Arm’s market share of data centers grew to 7.1 percent at the end of second quarter in 2022. It was an increase from less than percent in the year prior, 2.2 percent in 2020 and 5.4 percent by the end 2021, according to Omdia. The upward trend is likely to remain.
“These are servers built around an SoC, which they’ve developed based on our Neoverse implementation course,” Awad told the Mobile World Congress 2023. “Now they’re able to provide computing instances which are between 30 to 40% less expensive than servers based on different designs. This isn’t due to the cost of silicon. It’s due to the general design they can put into the server level as well as the power they could save across the all-encompassing datacenter.”
In the final analysis infrastructure is a data issue He said. “And when I talk about infrastructure, I mean it with a capital “I. It’s much more than the infrastructure I’ve just mentioned. It’s the infrastructure that runs from the biggest supercomputers in the world, right down to the smallest sensor. It’s all about how we collect the data from those tiny sensors and process it efficiently possible, then transfer it if required to a higher-order computing node, and then do it efficiently.”
Additionally, Intel and AMD are creating more powerful processors designed to reduce power consumption. Intel recently introduced the fourth generation of its Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids CPUs.
“Compared with top-end third-gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, fourth-gen Xeon users can expect a 2.9x average performance-per-watt efficiency improvement for targeted workloads when utilizing built-in accelerators, up to 70-W power savings per CPU in optimized power mode with minimal performance loss for select workloads, and a 52% to 66% lower TCO,” Intel stated in an announcement to the press.
Fourth generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors are the most eco-friendly data center processors. They offer various features for optimizing performance and power by making maximum utilization of CPU resources to assist customers in achieving their sustainable goals, as per Intel.
AMD also introduced the EPYC Embedded 199004 Server processors. The brand new series “delivers top-of-the-line quality and performance as well as energy savings to the next generation of storage, networking, and security applications. Utilizing the performance and efficiency advantages of the new “Zen 4″ core architecture [5 nanometer] to provide extraordinary performance-per-watt gains that allow you to reach new heights in embedded computing and connectivity.” AMD said on its website.
Renewable energy is a necessity
Although the ICT sector is one of the biggest industries that consume electricity It also assists in improve operations and decrease the carbon footprint and power consumption for other industries.
Innovative communication technologies can assist in determining, monitoring and forecast energy consumption, and drive exponentially higher efficiency. ICT solutions can reduce global emissions by as much as 15 percent in the next 15 years in the estimation of International Telecommunications Union. The mobile technology of today allows carbon reductions equivalent to 4 percent of global emissions, or 10 times the footprint of mobile technology’s carbon footprint.
It is crucial that data center and cloud operators put in a lot of effort to get the majority of their power by utilizing renewable resources.
Google hopes to run with carbon-free, 24/7 power all over the world by 2030. IBM is aiming to get 70% of power which IBM Cloud servers use all over the world through renewable sources by 2025 and 90 percent by 2030. Amazon is planning to provide its cloud services with 100 percent green power sources in 2025.
Renewable energy sources should be locally sourced
There are at around 1,400 GW of brand renewable power capacity that is being added to America’s waiting lists for connections to the four grids of the nation.
Grids that are used in developed nations aren’t accustomed to the rapid changes. In the last quarter in the 20th century, handful of new power plants might start to provide power to balance usage and replace older facilities, or even compete on cost. Net capacity fluctuates not much and new power plants typically use the same connections as the old ones.
The solution is designed for the large and big data centre operators of cloud to create and sustain renewable energy sources close to their facilities, which is ideally a mix of wind and solar power. They can tap directly into these sources. Furthermore they can store excess energy in huge batteries to help balance energy consumption.
Bitcoin mining creates problems
A recent study conducted by The New York Times shows that the growth of Bitcoin mining within the U.S. creates severe problems for power companies, who need to pay “factories” to pause operations in times of high demand.
According to the report that 96% of the 450 MW utilized in Riot Platforms Riot Platforms “mine” in Rockdale, Texas, are supplied by fossil fuel plants, which cause more than 2 megatons of pollution per year. Additionally, the 34 major bitcoin mining facilities operating within the U.S. generate nearly 16.4 megatons of carbon pollution annually.
The bitcoin miners don’t care much regarding the environmental impact of their business. Bitcoin’s price was stable last year, and so it is as long as these newly created “coins” can pay the power bills, they’re content to carry on.
Sustainability is an absolute requirement
Energy efficiency isn’t an option but crucial to achieve net-zero goals and sustainable development experts believe. Businesses must boost their energy-efficiency initiatives and push these to the next level.
Although digitalization and wireless technology as well as cloud computing aid in reducing the energy consumption and emissions of several industries, they aren’t worth it if the economies continue to expand manufacturing of consumer items and services.