Data centers are the pillars of the digital economy, providing the infrastructure for everything from search engines to streaming services. But surging electricity consumption threatens their continued growth, and thus the growth of the global economy itself. Global data center energy use exceeds 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually — comparable to a mid-sized nation.(1) And unchecked growth could push this to a staggering 7.5% of the US’ projected electricity demand by the end of the decade.(2)
This trajectory is driven in large part by the rise of artificial intelligence. Training a single AI model or chatbot can use more electricity than 100 US homes use in an entire year.(3) As innovative AI spreads, its voracious energy appetite could further overwhelm grids.
Clearly this path jeopardizes environmental limits. Yet preventing progress is equally untenable. So how can we enable flourishing digital innovation without sacrificing sustainability? The solution requires reimagining data center design and operation.
Verrus’ Optimized Approach
Verrus is pioneering a new generation of flexible, efficient data centers that are tailored for both conventional and AI workloads. We are fundamentally rearchitecting how a data center uses energy, taking an entirely new approach that meets surging compute demands while supporting grid stability.
Legacy data centers follow rigid designs mismatching infrastructure to actual availability requirements. Verrus employs workload-aware and other innovations to shatter this status quo. We stack solutions in infrastructure, software optimization, and grid integration to unlock new levels of flexibility and efficiency.
Specialized Infrastructure
Verrus can seamlessly co-locate high-density, GPU-based AI training in the same data center as more traditional, lower-density CPU-based compute and storage. This specialized infrastructure maximizes efficiency aligned with uptime needs.
If required by our customers, our server halls can ensure 99.999% uptime through robust power supply and distribution redundancy. But our flexible design approach also welcomes AI’s unique profile, which tolerates brief interruptions to optimize sustainability without sacrificing model quality.
These flexible data halls also offer expanded infrastructure for AI’s voracious requirements. Verrus utilizes innovative cooling techniques to support extreme chip heat dissipation from power-hungry GPUs.
Together, workload-aligned data halls establish the foundation for computing that matches demand to supply with minimized waste.
Smarter Data Center Assets
Most data centers strand capacity due to simplistic asset configurations. Verrus, by contrast, deploys electrical and mechanical datacenter infrastructure to maximize the sharing potential of these assets, which improves utilization efficiency and decreases customer costs.
In place of redundant, isolated and unsustainable power assets, we implement optimized electrical and mechanical plant architecture to fluidly align capacity to loads across the facility. Supply adapts to sync with demand (and vice versa), rather than sitting idle.
Furthermore, legacy data centers rely on polluting diesel generators for backup electricity. Verrus focuses instead on sustainable distributed energy technologies, such as battery storage. These systems preserve uptime during outages while avoiding carbon, NOx and particulate emissions. Verrus’ systems can switch to seamlessly supply power if disruptions hit the grid. Robust monitoring and optimization then ensures sufficient capacity remains to sustain latency-critical workloads if needed.
But unlike diesel generators, batteries can allow Verrus’ data centers to support stressed electricity grids in a sustainable manner. We can strategically shift power from flexible workloads to avoid overwhelming grids when supply runs tight. As a result, Verrus’ facilities provide resilience and flexibility to the grid — becoming assets to their local utility, rather than constant, inflexible drains on power.
Intelligent Optimal Dispatch Software
An optimal dispatch software system binds Verrus’ infrastructure innovations together. Sitting atop our assets, this software can coordinate uptime preservation while dynamically optimizing costs, emissions, and grid supportability.
In essence, the software can harmonize operations facility-wide. The system can seamlessly govern bi-directional energy flows throughout the data center’s infrastructure, smoothing out electrical peaks and valleys by leveraging batteries and other power assets. It also can align flexible batch workloads with intervals of low-carbon supply availability, minimizing emissions.
This software optimization has no precedent in traditional data centers. Most facilities feature static designs that align to peak demand scenarios, regardless of actual utilization needs. Their rigid architectures stand unable to adapt to shifts in workloads or grid conditions. Exclusive reliance on diesel generators strands most data centers as isolated silos unable to support their customers’ sustainability goals.
Verrus shatters these conventions through holistic software governance. Our optimization can dynamically calibrate operations to sync with workload variability, grid interactions, and carbon availability. Nothing is static; everything can adjust fluidly to match requirements. This agile software coordination simply does not exist within conventional facilities. And it is the breakthrough enabling computing growth that finally bends to — rather than breaks from — climate realities.
Partnership Power
Transitioning data centers to sustainable models requires alignment across the computing ecosystem. Verrus coordinates closely with customers to plan solutions tailored to their goals. We also work with utilities to upgrade infrastructure, helping them keep pace with anticipated load growth.
This collaborative approach reduces costs and quickens deployment timelines. Shared, modular infrastructure clusters lower upfront capital expenditure for each customer. Carbon arbitrage and grid integration diminish energy costs over time.
At Verrus, we believe that with careful design and partnership, surging data appetite need not sacrifice human needs. The ingredients for progress exist if we summon the collective creativity to align innovation to reality.
As data propels worldwide innovation, demand for computing power will continue rising. Without intervention, surging electricity consumption threatens sustainability goals and grids. But we need not choose between technological stagnation and environmental ruin. Verrus is unifying smart design and creative collaboration to curtail emissions while safely powering data growth. Our world’s data appetite may be insatiable, but with care and creativity, it can be satisfied sustainably.
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- https://www.iea.org/energy-system/buildings/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks
- Boston Consulting Group; The Impact of GenAI on Electricity
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-09/how-much-energy-do-ai-and-chatgpt-use-no-one-knows-for-sure