Closing the ICT Infrastructure Loop: The Rise of Circular Data Center and Toolkit for Sustainable Operations

Data Center (DC) construction and operation requires high Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) investment, and regulatory compliance due to mounting energy and water demand. DC operators are strategically adopting circular business practices such as low-carbon construction material, retrofitting existing buildings, low Global Warming Potential (GWP), or recycling refrigerant to reduce the sector’s carbon emissions and gain a competitive advantage. Most recent examples of DC circular practices include:

• Brown Field Data Centers: Ada Infrastructure’s newest flagship development for GLP Capital Partner’s DC campus in the Royal Docklands, London. The “Artificial Intelligence (AI)-ready” 210 Megawatt (MW) DC campus is planned for a former paint factory, focusing on meeting future AI workloads through three 70 MW DC buildings and a community multi-purpose facility. The DC achieves a BREEAM “Excellent” rating, cooled by both air and liquid cooling systems with provisions to connect to district heating methods and the use of low-carbon building materials, net-positive landscaping, and adherence to strict physical and cybersecurity protocols.
• Reverse Manufacturing: 14.6 million hardware components have been directed from landfills through recycling or sold in the secondary market, with Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) circular and low carbon server rack design. Pure Storage follows a “Storage-as-a-Service” business model using a modular sustainable “Evergreen systems architecture.” Hardware and software for the intelligent components of the Information Technology (IT) products are upgraded regularly without disruption, eliminating product replacement and associated e-waste, and extending lifecycle. Customers have benefited from the latest technology, with up to 5X less energy and rack space, as well as at least 90% e-waste generated and up to 85% carbon emissions from product use.
• Heat Reuse: Deep Green’s innovative solution demonstrates heat from washing machine-size DCs to heat swimming pools in Devon, United Kingdom. Early this year, Octopus Energy invested £200 million to scale the solution to 150 swimming pools.
• Thermal Management: Since 2019, Daikin launched a circular economy initiative L∞P by Daikin, a line of products including Variable Refrigerant Volume (VRV), chillers, and heat pumps using reclaimed refrigerants such as R-410A, R-134A, and R-32. Through the initiative, more than 400,000 Kilograms (kg) of virgin refrigerant and 3,590 tonnes of carbon emissions can be saved yearly.
• Take-Back Programs: Carrier/Sensitech’s Device Takeback Program reuses temperature data collection instruments, reclaiming 8.5 million devices since 2021. The Vertiv Trade-In Program for legacy Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems at local facilities ensures safe disposal and opportunities for reuse and refurbishment.

The DC industry is large in size with a limited target customer base. To maintain a competitive edge, DC operators are focusing on tapping into all aspects of the ecosystem to retain and cater to existing customers, and capture new clients. Reduced operating costs, reporting environmental impact and carbon emissions, and conscious computing and implementation of efficient cooling strategies are becoming critical levers for sustainable and robust growth in the coming years. Additionally, this will improve DC operators’ profitability, lower operational costs, and improve brand perception. For instance, using brownfield sites and retrofitting existing infrastructure are resulting in lower costs and faster deployments due to expedited building permits.

An average DC must upgrade its IT equipment every 3 to 5 years to support operational efficiency. The components are toxic, corrosive, and contain hazardous materials such as lead, lithium, mercury, and cadmium, which can further contaminate soil and ground water, or critical metals can be recycled. Extending the operational phase of IT equipment, through optimal cooling strategies and reusability of components reduces electronic waste and minimizes carbon footprint. On the operational side, waste heat from DCs is being used for heating offices, laundromats, residences, swimming pools, and greenhouses to grow crops like mushrooms or herbs. According to ABI Research, today, more than 80 DCs globally practice heat reuse for heating offices in DCs, laundromats, heating residences, swimming pools, or agriculture. From 2026, all new DCs in Germany will have a heat recovery quota of 10%, increasing to 20% in 2028. Similar tax rebates and heat recovery in line with the Energy Efficiency Act will be implemented in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway for residential or commercial heating.

ABI Research forecasts that dedicated AI DCs are in the nascent stage with a projected high Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of over 25% in the next decade. Regulators are using this as an opportunity to set the stage for needing sustainable DC operations, implementing high hardware-efficiency metrics, embedding innovative cooling strategies and software, and increasing IT equipment lifecycle, while doubling down on renewable/low-carbon energy sources to reduce their carbon footprint.

Green DCs are energy-efficient facilities designed with a holistic, circular, and lifecycle approach from design, manufacturing, build, and operation to reuse/recycling and end of life/e-waste disposal. The key components of a green DC include:

• Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM): A centralized platform for virtualization or a digital twin of the DC operations that monitors, tracks, analyzes, and manages  functionalities such as power distribution, cooling systems, and IT assets. Advanced monitoring tools support DC operators with real-time tracking and insights into the DC’s operations, resource utilization, and asset demands such as energy, cooling, and predictive maintenance to further implement optimization strategies. Solution providers include NIyte, Johnson Controls, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and Vertiv.
• Microgrids and Alternative Energy Sources: Local grid capacity is currently struggling to meet DC energy requirements; in the next 5 years, the DC capacity will double. Hyperscalers and DCs in North America and Europe are highly dependent on long term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) through integrating renewables with battery storage. Nordic DCs, for example, are connecting to local district heating facilities to supplement heating of local communities, increasing the reliability and resilience of local energy grids, creating opportunities, and piloting low-carbon energy storage systems.
• Efficient and Advanced Cooling Systems: With increased Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) compute, using traditional air conditioning systems to cool servers that use air as a medium and maintaining a low operating temperature is energy intensive and increasing the DC Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). DC operators are adopting a two-step advanced cooling strategy, implementing liquid cooling on a server-level and air cooled systems on an infrastructure level to optimize infrastructure cooling loads, energy, and operating costs.
• Responsible Computing: DC operations contributed nearly 80% to carbon emissions. Through optimized workloads and measuring energy and water usage, operators are conscious of their existing and future operational footprint.
• Asset Lifecycle Management: Green DCs emphasize the need to extend the use of existing IT systems through retrofits or modular system upgrades and refurbishment. Once hardware or its component reaches the end of its operational life, responsible recycling ensures recovery of reusable components and appropriate disposal of hazardous materials.
• Heat Recovery: Reusing waste heat for additional energy benefits, rather than a waste by-product is an innovative approach adopted by DCs to reduce operational emissions. Waste heat is captured and used for district heating or to generate additional electricity for other use cases as mentioned above.

For more information on the latest trends in DCs, see the following reports from ABI Research: PT-3129, Strategic Cooling Technologies for Green and Efficient Data Center Operations (AN-6239), MD-CSDC-101, and Optimizing Data Center Infrastructure: Market Sizing Thermal Management & Energy Consumption Market Data Overview: 4Q 2024 (PT-3252).