www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za RACA Journal I July 2025 5
International News
MICROSOFT QUANTIFIES FULL ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT OF DATA CENTRE COOLING
Edited from Microsoft article
In a groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature, researchers at Microsoft have, for the first time, meticulously quantified energy and water consumption alongside greenhouse gas emissions associated with four distinct data centre cooling technologies.
This comprehensive‘ cradle to grave’ analysis extends far beyond the operational phase, scrutinising the entire lifecycle of these cooling methods – from the extraction of raw materials and the manufacturing of components to transportation and eventual disposal.
This level of detailed assessment, a process that took the Microsoft team over two years to complete, offers invaluable insights for the design of future, more sustainable data centres. According to Husam Alissa, director of systems technology in cloud operations and innovation at Microsoft and leader of the lifecycle assessment study, this proactive approach is crucial. " A lot of people do life cycle assessments after the fact, to understand a data centre’ s environmental impact after it’ s built. When we’ re trying to make future design decisions, we typically look at total cost of ownership, performance, sustainability and other factors. We’ re advocating in this paper for the use of life cycle assessment tools to guide engineering decisions early on and also sharing the tool with the industry to make adoption easier.”
Microsoft intends to leverage the findings from these comprehensive lifecycle assessments – which meticulously account for the carbon, water and energy implications of their data centres – to inform the design of new facilities and the optimisation of cloud operations, ultimately supporting the company ' s broader sustainability objectives.
One significant finding of the study revealed that transitioning from traditional air cooling to more direct cold plate cooling technology, a method Microsoft is currently implementing, could lead to substantial reductions across the board. Specifically, greenhouse gas emissions and energy demand could decrease
Image by Freepik
The study highlighted the complexities involved in selecting the optimal cooling method.
www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za RACA Journal I July 2025 5