Digital Realty and Ecolab: When AI Works for the Environment

In an era where environmental concerns are paramount, the data centre industry finds itself at a crossroads. 

As the backbone of our digital economy, these facilities are under increasing scrutiny for their substantial energy consumption and environmental impact. 

Yet a recent partnership announcement by Digital Realty and Ecolab could change that. Digital Realty, one of the world’s biggest data centre companies, will embark on an AI-enabled journey to address one of the industry's most pressing challenges: water conservation.

The eco aims of the collaboration

Ecolab’s solution, a global provider in water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions, is part of Digital Realty's broader water conservation strategy, aimed at improving water usage effectiveness (WUE) and reducing overall water consumption. This will, however, see Digital Realty to implement an AI-driven water conservation solution across 35 of its US data centres. 

This pilot project, implemented by Nalco Water (Ecolab's water and process management business), aims to enhance Digital Realty's water use efficiency and minimise its environmental footprint.

The solution combines Ecolab's century-long expertise with advanced automation and control technology. By leveraging AI and machine learning models, the system establishes actionable water consumption benchmarks, identifies real-time operational inefficiencies in cooling systems, and recommends immediate improvements.

Data centres' affect on the environment

Data Centres are notorious for their substantial energy consumption, often using power equivalent to that of a small city. However, their water usage, which is equally concerning, has received less public attention.

Data centres require enormous amounts of water for cooling purposes. For instance, a 15-megawatt data centre in the US can consume up to 360,000 gallons of water daily.

This level of water consumption is not only unsustainable but also potentially detrimental to local communities and ecosystems, especially in areas already facing water scarcity.

Moreover, the traditional cooling methods employed by many data centres, such as cooling towers, pose significant environmental and health risks. These systems are often inefficient and can serve as breeding grounds for harmful bacteria like Legionella. The use of chemicals to mitigate these risks further compounds the environmental impact.

A cleaner, AI-led future

The collaboration between Digital Realty and Ecolab represents a significant step forward in addressing the water consumption issue. The AI-powered solution is expected to drive up to a 15% reduction in water use, extend the life of equipment, and potentially avoid the withdrawal of up to 126 million gallons of potable water from local watersheds annually.

This initiative builds upon a long-standing relationship between the two companies, which has already yielded impressive results. In 2023 alone, their joint efforts helped Digital Realty reduce water withdrawal from local watersheds by 5% and avoid 986 metric tons of CO2 emissions through restorative energy projects and water use reduction initiatives.

Such commitment to sustainability extends beyond water conservation, with its Apollo AI platform having saved 18 gigawatt-hours of energy savings. Thus this addition may see Digital Realty work towards become the a coveted status of sustainable data centre.

This would not only be good to offset their own carbon footprint, but could help influence the industry to act in equal sustainable ways.

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