What does the data centre sector’s growth mean for sustainability?

‘The demand for computing grows in step with increasing digitalisation, cloud services, digital platforms and especially the training and use of AI. As a result, tech companies and investors are building data centre after data centre. For the EU, the International Energy Agency predicts a 50% growth of the sector’s electricity consumption in the span of just four years. In 2022 data centre electricity consumption was around 4% of all EU total energy demand. Ireland is an extreme example where the data centre sector has seen a 400% growth in the electricity consumption since 2015, consuming more than a fifth of the country's electricity today. So the trend is clear and we have not even factored in other resources such as water and those needed when manufacturing equipment. We have to ask ourselves what this growth implies for the sector’s and EU’s overall sustainability goals.’

What does the EU do to keep this energy consumption in check?

‘For the EU, the Commission has set the goal of achieving climate-neutral, highly energy-efficient and sustainable data centres by no later than 2030. This is in five years time. We have mapped the current legal framework at EU level and found out that there is a lot of attention to making data centre equipment more energy efficient and promote the use of renewable energy. But what the EU is not doing at the moment, is managing the sector’s growth to keep with its 2030 sustainability goal, which is becoming increasingly untenable. Later this year, the Commission will issue a report which will assess the feasibility of transition towards a net-zero emission data centres sector. That will be the moment of truth that should lead to further measures to ensure the twin transition does not become lopsided, prioritising digitalisation over sustainability.’

What do you think should happen?

‘Our article makes a range of observations about upgrading the current legislative framework on data centres in light of the recent trends. First and foremost, the sustainability goal should be made legally binding and the EU needs to consider additional measures to manage the data centre sector’s growth and carbon footprint. Who gets to use the limited renewable energy and what happens to objectives for decarbonising other sectors when renewable energy is used up by data centres, needs to be considered. Another important finding concerns the need for improved public transparency about a data centre’s local impact on resources and emissions. Finally, EU policy should introduce proportionality frameworks for resource-intensive computing applications whose contribution to the common good should outweight its environmental costs. Right now, the sustainability costs of this industry are collectivized, while the benefits are privatized. That is not a good solution.’

Collectivised costs and privatised benefits – could you expand on that?

‘Training very large AI systems is one of the most energy-intensive tasks there is. Our society has to bear the environmental costs of that, but the benefits of such systems go to private companies. Sure, some AI tools like ChatGPT are free to use at the moment, but eventually most of them will be paid services. The data centre sector’s expansion is currently not factored in our approach to regulation, but it should be, as it will affect not only its own sustainability goals but that of other sectors and entire countries.’

Can AI also help solve sustainability issues?

‘Of course, we need the digital, and it will be part of the solution to many of the sustainability problems we face. But that does not mean that all AI is solving sustainability problems. We have to start thinking about whether the training of AI systems is justified, in light of their environmental costs.’

In the US, tech companies are buying nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) to power their data centres. Could that happen in the EU as well?

‘There is a strong push to use nuclear energy to power digital technologies and AI, as this is seen as a carbon-free energy source. At the AI Action Summit in Paris earlier this year, the French President Emmanuel Macron made headlines inviting AI companies to France, which has abundant nuclear energy. Also, in the UK constructing nuclear Small Modular Reactors, so-called SMRs, to power AI data centres are given serious thought. This does not merely raise questions of nuclear safety and waste, but also more fundamental questions about unbridled power by a handful of big tech companies over computing resources when they invest in nuclear SMRs. We believe the EU should not endorse nuclear SMRs as a solution to sustainable computing without critically examining potential negative impacts.’

What can ordinary people do to reduce their energy consumption in data centres?

‘Of course everything has a footprint, and this can also be quantified, but individual consumption is not what we should focus on. In fact, we need to think about a couple of other things: what are very large but frivolous uses of computing? Think of cryptocurrency mining that uses proof of stake models. How can we make software that runs more sustainably? And do we really need all this dark data that is stored for eternity and costs a lot of energy? So there is lots of potential, and I think the wrong way to go about it would be to tell ordinary people to stop streaming a series or so. Instead, the EU and the member states should coordinate their data center policies and make sure the sector’s growth remains within sustainable boundaries. We cannot simply leave growth to a market that would keep delaying sustainability.’

What do you think could be a solution?

‘We could try to set-up energy efficient data centres that are also managed by those who use them, rather than using a service from one of the large hyperscalers. We need local data centres that rely on local, renewable energy, and cater for local demand. Much of what the city of Amsterdam and its residents do, for instance, can be handled with a normal, locally managed, medium sized cloud data centre. And whenever there is a more compute-intensive task, you can still move computing workload from the local cloud to a larger cloud.’

Would this local data centre scenario mean that more data centres would have to be built here?

‘Not more, but different, and I think it would be a better solution in the long run. It would make us more independent, make sure that sustainability can really be achieved, and that we actually have an infrastructure that corresponds to local needs. This will be my next research project.’