The industry as a whole needs to come up with ways to reduce its carbon and water footprint — and fast.

It's not just Mother Nature either, but communities — including some in Arizona and Iowa — that are already balking at the rise of datacenters and their thirsty ways.

MICROSOFT'S EMISSIONS AND WATER USE SHOOT UP AS IT GOES ALL IN ON AI DATACENTERS

HOW WILL MICROSOFT EVER REACH ITS SUSTAINABILITY GOALS AT THIS RATE?

GETTY / FUTURISM

Waste Water

Futurism

Microsoft Is Draining Arizona's Water for its AI

As Microsoft ramps up efforts to conquer the artificial intelligence industry, its latest sustainability report shows that its water use and carbon emissions have shot up dramatically.

The software giant increased its water use from 6.4 million cubic meters in 2022 to 7.8 million cubic meters in 2023. And its emissions jumped from around 12 million metric tons of carbon in 2020 to about 15 metric tons last year, mostly stemming "from the construction of more datacenters" and indirect carbon footprint from "building materials, as well as hardware components such as semiconductors, servers, and racks."

Microsoft has lofty goals to become carbon negative by 2030 — pledging to use greener tech, materials and processes — while pursuing aggressive water replenishment projects. But that's going to be tough as it continues its pursuit of AI dominance, including a high-profile partnership with OpenAI and immense new energy needs.
Energy Vampire

This is the same problem confronting the rest of the AI industry: building water- and energy-hungry datacenters to fuel the AI boom comes at the expense of our already overburdened planet.

WSJ

6:22

AI Is Fueling a Data-Center Boom. Can the Power Grid Keep Up?

Watch

Uploaded: Apr 15, 2024

Data center development is booming across the U.S. thanks to AI. Some industry analysts estimate global capacity to double by 2030. But it faces a big obstacle: getting enough power. Graphic: Ryan ...

RELATED CONTENT UPLOADED EARLIER ON THIS BLOG:

28 July 2022

PROTOTYPE PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE

Let's see about this

Can hydrogen fuel cells power Microsoft data centers?

There’s hype around ‘green’ hydrogen

By Justine Calma@justcalma Jul 28, 2022, 9:00am EDT

Microsoft has reached a new milestone in its effort to ditch diesel in favor of cleaner energy at its data centers. The company announced today that it successfully tested a hydrogen fuel cell system powerful enough to replace a traditional diesel-powered backup generator at a large data center.

As part of its plans to tackle climate change, Microsoft wants to completely quit using diesel as fuel for its backup power systems by 2030. To keep data centers running 24/7, regardless of power outages, each center is equipped with batteries that temporarily kick in until backup generators are fired up.

For now, those generators run on diesel, releasing air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen fuel cells, in contrast, combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and release heat and water instead of pollution. Big batteries can also run on clean energy but generally don’t have the capacity to power a data center for more than a few hours at best.

That’s why Microsoft is pretty excited about hydrogen as a fuel and the milestone it just reached: designing and testing a three-megawatt hydrogen fuel cell system that can power around 10,000 computer servers at a data center (or 600 homes, for comparison).

“What we just witnessed was, for the datacenter industry, a moon landing moment,” Sean James, Microsoft director of data center research, said in a blog post today.

It’s been a long journey to get to this point, and there’s still a long road ahead before all of the backup generators at Microsoft data centers can be pollution-free. Microsoft started tinkering around with fuel cell technology in 2013. But, at the time, the fuel cells it was working with still relied on natural gas.

Steam is seen venting from pipes at the top of the shipping containers during a test of the three-megawatt fuel cell system. PEM fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical reaction that generates electricity, heat, and water.

By 2018, the company had turned its attention to proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology that can run on pure hydrogen. But Microsoft says it couldn’t find any suppliers making PEM fuel cell systems large enough for its data centers. So Microsoft asked Plug Power, experts in hydrogen fuel cell systems, to build a custom one. Microsoft and Plug tested the system over several weeks in June. After successfully testing the prototype, Plug is working on creating a streamlined commercial version. Microsoft says it will install the system at a research data center next, with no specified target date yet for introducing the technology at one of its live data centers.

There’s a whole lot of hype around hydrogen as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels right now. The Biden administration has an $8 billion plan to build out hydrogen production “hubs” in the US, for example.

But that hype is also garnering some criticism. While hydrogen fuel cells might only produce heat and water, the process of making the hydrogen fuel itself can get dirty. Today, most of it is made with natural gas, a fossil fuel. Microsoft tested its prototype using so-called “blue hydrogen,” which is made with natural gas paired with carbon capture technology that’s supposed to draw down most of the carbon dioxide emissions that come from using fossil fuels.

In the future, Microsoft hopes to use only “green” hydrogen that’s made with renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. But that’ll likely depend on factors outside of Microsoft’s control — like whether the Biden administration and other governments prioritizing clean energy can bring a lot more renewable energy online, build out the infrastructure to produce and transport green hydrogen, and make green hydrogen cost-competitive with dirtier fuels.

05 July 2019

Mesa LalaPaLooza: All The Hype That's Fit-to-Print > Data Hub

Let's take one more dive into all the hoopla-hype pitched-out from the constant Jive-Talk by Mesa Mayor John Giles and city officials
It is time for a TIME OUT.
Here's the most recent low-key report on all of Google's Data Centers with no over-the-top exaggeration, even though a press release from the City of Mesa News Room took pains to issue a carefully-worded announcement immediately after last Thursday's public meeting stating it was not a done deal. That's quite a different slant from Giles stating "In terms of a financial deal, this is home run. This is a great day."
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Google’s Western US Data Center Capacity Is Swelling Up

If all goes to plan, it will have gone from one campus in 2018 to four in 2020.

Yevgeniy Sverdlik | Jul 03, 2019

Google announced on Monday the start of construction of its first data center in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. The same day, city officials Mesa, Arizona, a small town outside Phoenix, approved a development agreement to build a Google data center there.

In recent years, the Alphabet subsidiary has been investing heavily to expand its computing infrastructure around the world. It’s been spending billions every quarter on network and data center construction to support its products for regular internet users – things like Search, Maps, YouTube, and Gmail – but even more so to scale the Google Cloud platform that provides computing services to enterprises.
___________________________________

A good portion of that spend has gone to build up its footprint in the western US, where the company is planning to go from one major data center location (in Oregon) about one year ago to four by the end of 2020.

Historically, the bulk of Google’s US computing
infrastructure has been concentrated in the Midwest and in the South, but the company’s pursuit of a greater share of the cloud market (dominated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure) appears to be driving a need for more capacity in the west.
This April, Google announced plans to build data centers to support a new cloud availability region in Salt Lake City, and last July it announced the launch of a Los Angeles region. The Nevada data center will also host a new availability region for Google Cloud.
_________________________________________________________________________
Related: Cloud Giants Continue Pouring Billions Into Data Centers
_________________________________________________________________________

Google doesn’t expect to finish the first phase if the Mesa data center until 2025, according to a report by AZ Central.
What's omitted from the Data Center Knowledge report two days ago is this tentative and conditional statement:
"Google is considering acquiring property in Mesa, AZ., and while we do not have a confirmed timeline for development for the site, we want to ensure that we have the option to further grow should our business demand it ."_________________________________________________________________________________

The Las Vegas and Salt Lake builds are part of a $13 billion investment in new US offices and data centers the company announced earlier this year.
Google suggested that customers will be able to distribute their workloads across up to four regions in the west, once Las Vegas and Salt Lake come online (it expects to launch both next year).
Each new infrastructure region is also meant to target industries that are concentrated in its corresponding population center –

1 gaming and entertainment in Las Vegas
2 Hollywood in L.A.
3 healthcare, IT, and financial services in Salt Lake
4 _____________________________ in Mesa???

BLOGGER NOTE: The question still up-in-the-air is exactly what industries might get targeted in this "small town outside Phoenix" that's not targeted for Salt Lake City??
Reference: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com

________________________________________________________________________

BRIEF

Mesa, AZ lands $1B Google data center

Author Jason Plautz @Jason_Plautz

Published July 3, 2019

Dive Brief:

Google will bring a new $1 billion data center to Mesa, AZ after the city council approved the move in a vote Monday, according to the Arizona Republic.

The data center will be built on 187 acres of farmland in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, which already has five existing or planned data centers. Construction is expected to begin within five years, with the first part of the data center projected to be in place by 2025.

As part of the agreement, Google will get a $16 million break in property taxes over 25 years.

Dive Insight:

Google’s arrival boosts Mesa's reputation as a hub for data centers, which tech giants are increasingly building outside of the traditional base of Silicon Valley. Mesa is also home to a 1.3 million-square-foot Apple data center, open since 2016, and has used the facilities to build out its Technology Corridor. The development is growing across Arizona, with Microsoft recently purchasing three plots of land there for new data facilities.

It’s unclear how many jobs the data center will create, since most operations at those facilities are automated, though construction will create new jobs. Even with the tax break, the city’s economic development director estimates the project will bring in nearly $157 million in revenue, according to the East Valley Tribune, including $10,000 in annual rent.

That led Mayor John Giles to declare the deal a "home run."

Bringing in data centers is also a way to potentially attract tech giants to relocate more operations there. Google has touted its "major expansion" in data centers as a way to spread its investments outside of California; in February, the company announced $13 billion in data center investments across 14 states. As cities look to attract big tech firms away from the coasts, Mesa’s recruitment could pose as a model on how best to bring in the industry.

05 September 2023

BUSY AS BEES: Utah-Based Data Center Developer Purchased 165 Acres for $62.7M in Mesa..CEO Wes Swenson was the Sole Bidder

The company will begin finalizing a plan for the site;

it aims to have plans before the city planning & zoning board by Q1 2024
and could break ground in 2025.

Novva DC acquires 165 acres of land in Mesa, Arizona, at auction

CEO Wes Swenson the sole bidder for the land

September 01, 2023

By: Dan Swinhoe

Novva Data Centers has acquired a parcel of land in Mesa, Arizona, at auction.

BizJournal and AZCentral reported the company acquired 165 acres of state land in southeast Mesa for $62.7 million this week.

Novva CEO Wes Swenson was the sole-bidder for the parcel along Warner Road and Loop 202, located within the Hawes Crossing master planned community on more than 1,000 acres.

"I thought with the location of this land there might be a few more bidders, so I'm a bit surprised.
It's anticlimactic," Swenson told BJ.
"You do a lot of preparation prior [bidding on] a piece of land like this and of this size."

"We're not completely fixed on it yet," Swenson added.

"Our plan would be to attempt a design-build and operate data centers at the property.
We practice water-free air cooling, so we still need to do more research on its viability. ...
That's one of the uses.
The other might be industrial."

The company will begin finalizing a plan for the site; it aims to have plans before the city planning & zoning board by Q1 2024 and could break ground in 2025.

The CEO told AZCentral Novva could invest up to $5 billion over a seven-year period.

“We're excited. This is a big, big market we’ve been trying to get into,” he told the publication.
“We think this would be a great opportunity to do a green approach to data centers where it's maybe not been done [here before].”

Novva was launched in 2020 by former C7 CEO Wes Swenson with $95 million from CIM, initially with plans to develop a $1 billion hyperscale campus in West Jordan, Utah.

The company opened the 300,000 square foot (28,000 sqm) first phase of that campus late last year, and targets growing the facility to 1.5 million sq ft (140,000 sq m) over four phases.
The company has since acquired a 6MW facility in Colorado Springs and announced plans to expand it to 30MW for $200m.
2022 also saw Novva announce plans for a 275,000 square foot (25,550 sqm), 100MW data center in Las Vegas.
Earlier this year the company announced plans for a 60MW data center in Reno, Nevada that is set to open in 2024.
Last year saw the company raise another $355 million from CIM Group.
Novva plans to expand across the United States and expects to offer 1,000MW of data center capacity by 2027 at several yet-to-be-named locations.

The company utilizes autonomous aerial drone security and robotic dog monitoring at its sites.

Phoenix is a major data center hub, with the Mesa area home to

Polish software firm Comarch,
EdgeCore,
Meta,
Google, and
NTT.

Across the rest of Phoenix, the likes of

Microsoft operates a cloud region out of the area.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Utah-Based Data Center Developer Purchased 165 Acres for $62.7M in Mesa

Article originally posted on AZ Central on September 1, 2023

A Utah-based data center company purchased 165 acres of state land in southeast Mesa for $62.7 million.
Wes Swenson, the CEO of Novva Data Centers, was the sole bidder at Tuesday’s auction for the parcel along Warner Road and Loop 202, located within the Hawes Crossing master planned community on more than 1,000 acres.

The company already has data centers in Utah, Nevada and Colorado.
This project will be NovvaDC’s entrance to Arizona.

“We’re excited. This is a big, big market we’ve been trying to get into,” he said.

Swenson said metro Phoenix is the second-largest market for data center development.
East Mesa has seen a boom in data center development including big names like Google, Apple and Meta all located in the city.

A Google map arial view of the state land purchase along Warner Road and Loop 202.

Swenson said he anticipates making a $5 billion capital investment over five to seven years.

The plan is to have the project reviewed by the city’s planning and zoning board in the first quarter of 2024 and break ground in 2025.

Data centers have been criticized by the public for their water use and lack of high paying jobs.

Swenson said, Novva is focused on environmentally friendly methods like using waterless air-cooling technology.
“We think this would be a great opportunity to do a green approach to data centers where it’s maybe not been done” before here, he said.
Another technique Swenson plans to apply is atmospheric water generation which takes water from the air and turns it into potable water.

The location is a prime spot to develop an estimated 1.5 million-square-foot campus, Swenson said, because of its location near the highway and its separation from residential housing.

The parcel of land is already zoned for this type of development.

The facades of the buildings will be a “high architecture” design that could embrace the southwest style, Swenson said, the goal being to make the data centers more visually appealing compared to his competitors.