Data centers have become victims of their own success. Ever-larger data centers have mushroomed across the globe in line with an apparently insatiable demand for computing and storage capacity. The associated energy use is not only expensive (and gen...
The past year (2022) has seen regulators in many countries develop or mandate requirements to report data centers’ operating information and environmental performance metrics. The first of these, the European Commission's (EC's) Energy Efficiency Dir...
This report analyzes how colocation companies are improving sustainability through innovative approaches to cooling infrastructure, energy efficiency, renewable energy procurement, construction and more.
Many digital infrastructure operators have set themselves carbon-neutral or net-zero emissions goals: some large hyperscale operators claim net-zero emissions for their current operating year. Signatories to the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact, a Eu...
Siting colocation data centers in central business districts can have real advantages. So why does it happen so rarely? This report, based on interviews with providers, examines the operational challenges, and solutions for overcoming them.
The European Commission’s (EC’s) proposed recast of its Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) sets out new and strict reporting requirements for data centers operating in the EU. If passed, data centers with 100 kilowatts or more total installed IT power...
The Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey is the most comprehensive of its kind. The findings reveal the experiences of data center operators in the areas of performance, resiliency, efficiency and sustainability.
The thousands of gallons of diesel that data centers store on-site to fuel backup generators in the event of a grid outage are hard to ignore — and do little to assist operators’ drive toward tougher sustainability goals. In the past two years, an al...
The value, role and safety of nuclear power has strongly divided opinion, both in favor of and against, since the 1950s. This debate has now, in 2022, reached a critical point again as energy security and prices cause increasing concern globally (par...
A rapid rise in the concentration of processor thermal power will have far-reaching consequences, not only for servers but for facility design and operations.
An extreme heat wave swept across much of Western Europe on July 18 and 19, hitting some of the largest metropolitan areas such as Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris — which are also global data center hubs with hundreds of megawatts of capacity ...
Nearly 15 years ago – in 2008 – Uptime Institute presented a paper titled “The gathering storm.” The paper was about the inevitability of a struggle against climate change and how this might play out for the power-hungry data center and IT sector. Th...
Direct liquid cooling (DLC) is a collection of techniques that removes heat by circulating a coolant to IT electronics. Even though the process is far more efficient than using air, the move to liquid cooling has been largely confined to select appli...
Shifts in business expectations and technical requirements are moving data center operators towards direct liquid cooling. There are hurdles to overcome, but many in the industry expect this evolution to be just a matter of time.
Data centers are subject to an expanding set of sustainability measurement and reporting requirements — most are voluntary but will increasingly be mandated. Operators need to prepare to meet these requirements.
Daniel Bizo
Douglas Donnellan
Jay Dietrich
Max Smolaks
Lenny Simon
Tomas Rahkonen
Andy Lawrence
Owen Rogers
Jacqueline Davis