Key Announcement:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon that provides cloud services to various businesses, has announced a new partnership to tackle carbon emissions in its data centers.
- The collaboration with Orbital Materials focuses on enhancing sustainability in AWS operations, utilizing artificial intelligence to support innovative solutions.
- AWS plans to update its data center infrastructure to incorporate new components that will improve energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint.
Details of the Partnership:
As part of this initiative, Orbital Materials will test its carbon removal technology in AWS data centers by the end of 2025. The company leverages AI to accelerate the development of climate technologies and materials significantly faster than traditional approaches.
Additionally, AWS customers will gain access to Orbital’s open-source AI model, called “Orb,” which is designed for simulating materials. This feature will be available on Amazon’s platforms, including SageMaker and AWS Marketplace, allowing clients to explore technologies related to semiconductors, batteries, and other electronics.
Howard Gefen, AWS’s General Manager of Energy Utilities, highlighted the importance of this collaboration in promoting sustainable innovations industry-wide.
Infrastructure Enhancements:
AWS has also committed to improving its data center cooling systems. The new designs are expected to decrease mechanical energy use by up to 46% without increasing water consumption per megawatt of operation. This includes the potential introduction of liquid cooling systems.
Furthermore, AWS is aiming to reduce the carbon content in its building materials for data centers by 35%. This will involve utilizing low-carbon steel and concrete while optimizing designs to minimize the overall use of steel.
In its sustainability efforts, earlier this year, Amazon invested in Paebbl, a startup focused on creating building materials that capture carbon. AWS will also be testing these materials in one of its European data centers to gauge their effectiveness.
Moreover, AWS, along with other major tech companies, has been advocating for better transparency in lifecycle emissions related to data center infrastructure. They are promoting the inclusion of detailed information, akin to nutritional labels, for products used in data centers.