> What we do know is this: if the latest efficiency improvements in data center hardware and infrastructure continues apace, it should be possible to accommodate a 60 percent increase in demand for both traditional and hyperscale data center services over the next 12 months, without an accompanying increase in the energy they consume. But in order to achieve this feat, it is imperative that data center operators follow energy-efficient design principles.
> The report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has an encouraging conclusion. It states that improved energy is almost canceling out growing capacity. In 2014, data centers in the United States consumed 70 billion kilowatt hours. If energy efficiency levels remained as they were in 2010, the energy consumption by data centers today would be 160 billion kilowatt hours. The surprising reality is that the estimate for 2020 is only 73 billion kilowatt hours.
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Data center power consumption is a big topic, and a lot of people are talking about it and working on improving its energy efficiency.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/energy-efficiency-data-cent...
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/green-data-ce...
From the later article:
> What we do know is this: if the latest efficiency improvements in data center hardware and infrastructure continues apace, it should be possible to accommodate a 60 percent increase in demand for both traditional and hyperscale data center services over the next 12 months, without an accompanying increase in the energy they consume. But in order to achieve this feat, it is imperative that data center operators follow energy-efficient design principles.
https://www.comsoc.org/publications/tcn/2019-nov/energy-effi...
> The report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has an encouraging conclusion. It states that improved energy is almost canceling out growing capacity. In 2014, data centers in the United States consumed 70 billion kilowatt hours. If energy efficiency levels remained as they were in 2010, the energy consumption by data centers today would be 160 billion kilowatt hours. The surprising reality is that the estimate for 2020 is only 73 billion kilowatt hours.
---
Data center power consumption is a big topic, and a lot of people are talking about it and working on improving its energy efficiency.