Pursuing sustainable ocean data centres

This strategic alliance also seeks to address the growing climate and sustainability challenges facing the data centre industry and environment.

Under the MOU, each party will contribute a unique element to advance the development of sustainable ocean data centres:

• BDx will provide the data centre arrangement as well as the technical proposal and operational strategy.

• NUS Engineering will supply its cooling technology along with metrics for meeting relevant energy efficiency targets.  

• Sembcorp Marine will contribute an offshore platform solution.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Prof Teo Kie Leong, Deputy Dean and Vice Dean of Research at NUS Engineering said: “Data centres are the infrastructure for the digital economy and there is an increasing need for them. It is then essential that data centres operate efficiently to minimise overall energy, water consumption, and carbon emissions. Possible pathways include energy efficient cooling, since a large percentage of data centre energy consumption is used for cooling especially in tropical climates, and integration with renewable energy. It is also important for urban, land-scarce environments, like Singapore, that these data centres have little impact on land usage.”

He added: “This interdisciplinary collaboration is a timely and necessary project that brings together industry and academic communities to address the environmental sustainability of data centres.”

Assoc Prof Lee Poh Seng from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Executive Director of the Energy Studies Institute at NUS will be leading the NUS research team to supply liquid cooling technology and metrics for meeting relevant energy efficiency targets.

 “The growing demand for cloud computing, 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things has intensified the need for high-performance data centres that can be operated in an environmentally responsible manner,” said Associate Professor Lee.

He added: “We are pleased to study the feasibility of deploying our patented liquid cooling technology for this exciting development of offshore data centres that could be powered and cooled using seawater, the world’s most abundant resource. We look forward to working with BDx and Sembcorp Marine to bring about tangible benefits for both the digital economy and the environment.”

For more information, read the press release from BDx here.

(This article was originally published on NUS Engineering.)