Data centers, energy consumption and Moore’s Law

Sheila Moorcroft, Research Director, Shaping Tomorrow

Data centres are increasingly central, although relatively invisible, to the economy. The rising cost of running them and the growing challenge of cooling them are driving innovation.

What is changing?

A recent report estimated that in 2005 data centres consumed about 1.5% o the world’s electricity – about 150 billion kWh of power, about 25% of which is for cooling. The problem is that about 70% of that cooling power is lost. As the speed and density of chips increases, the need for fast and effective cooling increases; for every doubling of speed there is a quadrupling of heat generated.

Enter water – as well as other experiments. Water cools between 3500 and 4000 times more effectively than air based cooling systems. IBM, among others, is looking at water to cool chips- creating tiny 50-micron thick ‘tubes’ within the chip stacks to circulate water. Google is exploring moving whole data centres off shore onto floating barges using sea water to cool them and wave power to support energy production. Still others are exploring locating data centres down old mines or in cold climates.

Intel has successfully tested ‘outside air’ cooling systems in external temperatures of up to 90o F relying on circulation rather than air conditioning. In Taiwan, Micro-Star International is developing the ‘Air Power Cooler’ which uses the movement of air to drive a piston based fan – and no electricity.

Elsewhere co-location and cooperation plans are afoot to use waste heat for greenhouses, local swimming pools or housing up to 3 kilometres away.

Why is this Important?

The number of datacentres is set to grow – driven in part by the popularity of such sites as Facebook and Flickr but also by the migration to cloud computing and ever greater demand for digitally based processes and services. New regulations, for example, are increasing record keeping by 50% per annum.

According to a recent Environmental Protection Agency report, US data centres alone could be consuming nearly 125 billion kWh of electricity by 2011, twice today’s total, if nothing is done. Best practice levels of current innovation could achieve a 50 percent reduction; state of the art innovations, a two thirds reduction.

Heat could constrain the relentless progress of Moore’s law, slowing technical progress.

Data centres’ collective carbon footprint already exceeds that of nations such as Argentina or the Netherlands: by 2020 it is likely to exceed that of air travel.

As energy security, cost reduction and climate become ever greater priorities, this ‘hidden’ but essential part of the world economy is likely to be the focus of greater attention and innovation to the benefit of all.