Green & Sustainable Data Centers

[ Smart Infrastructure (Electrification, Intelligence) ]

Challenges Data Centers Are Facing

With the acceleration of developments in IoT devices, changes in working models including work-from-home, and rapid progress and expansion in artificial intelligence (AI) including Generative AI such as ChatGPT, the digitization in all areas of society is showing no signs of stopping. As digital transformation (DX) accelerates, data centers, which house the servers that process and store enormous amounts of data, have become integral to the social infrastructure that enables our digital society.

Global electricity demand from data centers, AI, and crypto 2022-2026, by scenario

As Generative AI is now expanding rapidly, data centers are needed to be built in a shorter period of time, offer increased density, and provide stable and efficient operations.

In addition, mechanical systems are becoming more and more automated and autonomous, and remote medical care continues to be more widely needed. Improving server processing capabilities and boosting speed to avoid latency (delay) will be critical. To respond to these needs, along with cloud-based data centers, there is a growing demand for edge data centers that can perform real-time high-speed and distributed processing on-site, right where the data is generated.

While these trends in society accelerates the construction of scores of data centers built with the latest servers, the power consumption of data centers to run and cool servers is skyrocketing. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centers consumed 460 Terawatt hours (TWh) in 2022, but this consumption is expected to reach between 650 TWh and 1,050 TWh by 2026, just in four years. This massive power consumption resulting in an increase in CO2 emissions, poses an obstacle for decarbonization efforts and the risk of creating disparities in energy use. Data centers are now a vital part of the infrastructure, so they need not only to be operated with high levels of safety and reliability, but also to be sustainable, driving towards carbon neutrality, including higher rates of renewable energy use, and operated efficiently to reduce their cost to society.

The Value that MHI Group Can Provide: One-Stop Solution

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group has a long history and track record of engineering and technologies including power supply, cooling, digital infrastructure, and electrification, contributing to solving social issues. We combine our technologies and products backed by our wide-ranging expertise to serve as a single point of contact to help realize a customer’s sustainable data centers, providing a one-stop solution optimized for today’s data centers.

MHI’s solutions include on-site power supply that provides stable operation while meeting decarbonization needs, advanced cooling systems that can handle high-output GPUs/CPUs running at very high temperatures, and integrated control systems that ensure optimized operation to provide highly dependable and sustainable data centers. At the same time, our solution will contribute to cash flow improvements for customers by shortening the lead time from financing to cash inflow, and increased cash inflow while reducing cash outflow.