Data Centres – Can Growth and Greening Go Together

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Curious to understand how the EU faces the challenge posed by the rising data volume and how Data Centres are handling the increase?

Data centres underpin every aspect of our daily lives and provide the infrastructure that enables the digital economy to function and grow. Yet to accommodate our insatiable thirst for digital services, more capacity is needed and we are seeing unprecedented growth in Europe with the expansion of existing data centre clusters and plenty of new, large scale developments.

For background, the energy consumption of data centres is due to increase by 28% over the current decade to reach 3.2% of the European Union’s energy use by 2030 while data processing activities are exploding.

At the same time, the European Green Deal sets forth the objective of reaching zero net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, implying that digital infrastructures need to do their own share of efforts. This is why the Commission has set an objective of achieving climate-neutral, highly energy-efficient and sustainable data centres by no later than 2030.

Subtopics

  • operator engagement with the community; negotiation of the “social contract”
  • citizen appreciation of data infrastructure
  • which techniques data infrastructure and cloud operators are deploying
  • what is the effect of new data processing at the edge
  • the policies that the Commission is putting forward towards greening targets

Speakers

Manuel MATEO GOYET , Deputy HoU E2

Miguel GONZALEZ, HoU DG DIGIT C3 – Data Centres

Emma FRYER, Partner Environmental Resources Management

Max SCHULZE, Founder SDI Alliance

Background information

This event is part of the CONNECT University Autumn School 2022 on Secure & Sustainable Digital Infrastructures, that aims to  address how this decade’s state-of-the-art digital infrastructure solutions fit over existing ones, fostering a circular economy system, while ensuring a high degree of security.

Check this blogpost for the full programme and more information.

 

Image with title Data Centres – Can Growth and Greening Go Together
Session 5
Tags
Data Centres Digital Infrastructures Data Infrastructures