Chandana Patnaik，Stratwiew Research 3月 22, 2024

Due to the average cost of downtime reaching thousands of dollars per minute, uninterrupted data center power is crucial.                 
        
Uninterruptible power supply is crucial for any data center to meet the growing demands of today's interconnected world. The downtime of data centers can cause significant losses. According to a survey of 67 data centers with an average area of 232 square meters, the average downtime cost exceeds $7500 per minute. It can be said that if data centers are crucial for today's soaring computing demand, then power supply in data centers is a fundamental requirement.                 
    
How much power does a single data center consume?
The power consumption of any data center depends on the scale of the facilities and the efficiency of the installed equipment. Small data centers ranging in area from 5000 to 20000 square feet, with 500 to 2000 servers, typically consume 1-5 MW of electricity. Large or ultra large data centers range in area from 100000 square feet to millions of square feet, can accommodate tens of thousands of servers, and consume electricity from 20 MW to over 100 MW. “

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A data center has a large number of systems and equipment working day and night, consuming a large amount of electricity. The electricity flowing through the data center is usually divided into the electricity used by IT equipment (including servers, storage, and networks), as well as the electricity used by infrastructure resources such as cooling and power supply systems.

To avoid potential failures, it is said that data center cooling systems consume up to 50% of the electricity of any data center. “
    
Data Center Efficiency: The Key to Sustainable Development
                
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As of December 2023, there are over 10900 data center locations worldwide, with over 45% located in the United States, which has many of the world's leading data consumption and production companies.

Undoubtedly, although many of these data centers are highly efficient and can store large amounts of data, they still consume a significant amount of electricity, which remains a major challenge.
According to the data of Cushman&Wakefield, a global commercial real estate service company, the global data center will consume 7.4 GW of power in 2023, an increase of 55% over 4.9 GW in 2022. The impact of this power consumption on the environment is undeniable.

It is estimated that global data centers account for 4% of global energy consumption and 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the annual carbon dioxide emissions from data centers and data transmission networks in 2020 were 330 metric tons. Driven by the expected growth in global data center electricity demand, this emission figure may rise in the coming years.

A Stratview Research estimate suggests that the global data center electricity market may exceed $30 billion by 2028.

Therefore, companies around the world are striving to achieve a PUE ratio of 1.0. According to Uptime Institute data, as early as 2022, the average PUE ratio was 1.55. Nowadays, Technology giants such as Facebook and Google are approaching the expected proportion. “
Development of Data Center Efficiency
China Telecom Corporation is one of the world's largest data center operators, with a reported PUE ratio of 1.2 in 2022, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence energy-saving solutions and the elimination of low energy efficiency and old facilities.

Facebook's data center achieved a PUE ratio of 1.08 in 2022. The company's Open Computing Project (OCP) servers can accept higher voltages, and there are no large central backup batteries nearby, but smaller backup batteries. Facebook's "vanity free" server has a simple design that can improve the performance of data centers. In summary, these innovative designs have helped Facebook data centers save a significant amount of resources.
Google Data Center has achieved 100% renewable energy, and the group's goal is to achieve 24/7 carbon free energy (CFE) by 2030. Amazon also plans to achieve its net zero carbon emissions target by 2040 and provide 100% renewable energy for its operations, including AWS data centers, by 2025.

Moro Hub in Dubai has been officially announced as the world's largest solar data center, reducing approximately 13806 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The facility follows green building standards and aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Data Center Power Market Trends
All kinds of physical devices around the world, including toys, tools and other appliances, are now connected to the Internet and generate a lot of data. It is expected that by the end of 2024, the number of connected devices will exceed 207 billion.

In 2023, over 120 ZB of data was generated globally, and it is expected to generate approximately 150 ZB of data by 2024. By 2025, this number is expected to increase to 180.

In addition, artificial intelligence has entered every aspect of our lives, and various industries are steadily adopting this technology. Compared to other types of workloads, AI applications generate more data and they also require more data storage capacity.

Traditional data centers have a power output of 5-10 kW per rack, while AI data centers require a power output of 60 kW or higher per rack. This marks the growth of data centers and the power to operate these centers. Nvidia estimates that it will spend $1 trillion on upgrading artificial intelligence data centers, with most of the cost going to Amazon Microsoft、 Large scale enterprises such as Google and Meta bear the responsibility.

We can imagine that the electricity demand for operating data centers will continue to grow significantly. By investing in innovative technologies and sustainable practices, data centers can ensure that their infrastructure not only meets this growing demand, but also minimizes environmental impact by reducing power consumption.

Chandana Patnaik is a senior content writer at Stratview Research. She has written articles for several well-known industry journals and regularly contributes to various technical magazines and portal websites.