A new report from Seagate has called on data centre operators to adopt a ‘balance between cost and carbon’ as they ramp up their capabilities.
The Decarbonizing Data report examines the growing sustainability challenges faced by data centres as they scale to meet the demands of AI, with some 94.5% of businesses in this sector already experiencing increased data storage needs, and 97% anticipating that that AI will push those demands even further.
Power consumption
Seagate’s research follows on from a recent study by Goldman Sachs which forecasts that power consumption from data centres could rise by as much as 165% by the end of the decade, compared to a 2023 baseline.
Other findings from the study include that nearly 95% of respondents are ‘concerned’ about their environmental impact, but only a small minority (3.3%) prioritise this in their purchasing decisions.
The top barriers driving sustainability at data centres are high energy consumption (53.5%), raw material requirements (49.5%), physical space constraints (45.5%), infrastructure costs (28.5%), and acquisition costs (27%), according to Seagate’s study.
‘Energy-intensive sector’
“Data centres are under intense scrutiny – not only because they support modern AI workloads, but because they are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the digital economy,” commented Jason Feist, senior vice president of cloud marketing, Seagate. “This calls for a fundamental shift in how we think about data infrastructure – not as a trade-off between cost and sustainability, but as an opportunity to optimise for both.”
Also of note was the ‘disconnect’ that businesses in the data centre sector have in terms of life cycle management – while 92.2% agree on the importance of extending equipment life to reduce waste and improve sustainability, just 15.5% actually factor this into their buying process.
“Sustainability cannot be solved in isolation. A holistic approach spanning infrastructure, life cycle management, and industry-wide accountability could ensure that the growth of AI and data centre operations does not come at the expense of the environment,” Feist added. Read more here.
