GreenBay Digest

Huawei’s iCooling@AI solution is dedicated to improving the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of data centers, resulting in an energy reduction of 8 to 15 percent. This substantial saving contributes to creating a greener and smarter future.

Data centers play a crucial role in supporting the vast array of smart services accessed by billions of Internet users worldwide. With the rapid advancement of technologies like 5G, IoT, and cloud computing, the demand for data has skyrocketed, leading to the growth of the data center industry.

Energy Efficiency Challenges
Data centers consume a significant amount of electricity, accounting for approximately 1 percent of global energy expenditure. However, despite the exponential growth in data center computing instances, power consumption has only increased by 6 percent since 2010. This trend indicates a positive improvement in energy efficiency, thanks to collaborative efforts by governments and enterprises.

iCooling@AI: Enhancing Energy Efficiency
To address the challenges of energy consumption in data centers, Huawei has developed iCooling@AI, an innovative solution that optimizes power efficiency through the integration of big data and AI. By leveraging intelligent algorithms and continuous self-optimization, iCooling@AI enables data centers to reduce their PUE by 8 to 15 percent. This intelligent control system replaces manual adjustments and dynamically adjusts cooling policies based on real-time data analysis.

Partnership Success: China Unicom Henan
China Unicom Henan, a leading operator, has implemented Huawei’s iCooling@AI solution in their data centers. By utilizing iCooling@AI’s capabilities, China Unicom Henan has achieved significant improvements in power efficiency, resulting in enhanced cost-effectiveness and reduced environmental impact.

The financial industry is undergoing significant disruptions driven by emerging technologies like 5G, cloud computing, and big data. To align with China’s “dual-carbon” goal and reduce environmental impact, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) built the Jin Qiao Data Center, Asia’s most energy-efficient data center in the financial sector.

Efficient cooling is crucial for a green data center. The Jin Qiao data center, serving as the SSE’s main operations center, houses 186,000 racks and consumes over 120 million kWh of electricity annually. To improve energy efficiency, the SSE selected Huawei’s iCooling@AI solution, which uses AI algorithms to optimize cooling operations based on real-time data, climate conditions, and IT loads. This smart cooling technology reduces the power usage effectiveness (PUE) by 13% annually, contributing to significant energy savings.

iCooling@AI enables visualization of cooling links, equipment connections, and transforms manual adjustments into intelligent collaboration. By integrating iCooling@AI into the Jin Qiao Data Center, Huawei and SSE have successfully decreased the annual average PUE by 13%. This achievement was recognized with the National Cloud Computing Center Science and Technology Award.

The Jin Qiao Data Center is Huawei’s first endeavor to integrate iCooling@AI into a hyper-scale data center in the financial sector. Moving forward, Huawei aims to collaborate with the Shanghai Stock Exchange to build a green and low-carbon data center model for the financial industry, contributing to sustainable and green finance.

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has experienced steady economic growth over the past two decades and currently boasts the largest economy on the continent. With a staggering 90 million internet users, Nigeria has the highest number of African internet users and is ranked tenth globally. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry is a major contributor to Nigeria’s strong economic growth and has facilitated the rapid development of various industries such as e-commerce, online banking, and digital government.

The burgeoning digital economy has also given rise to the development of data center infrastructure in the country. According to Xalam research, Internet Data Center (IDC) capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was recorded at 230 MW in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 30% over five consecutive years. Capacity is projected to increase to anywhere between 350–450 MW by 2024. This remarkable potential has attracted enterprises to invest in IDCs and build large-scale data centers in Nigeria.

CloudExchange, a leading system integrator in West Africa, recognized the tremendous market potential and decided to enter the IDC market. As a new entrant, CloudExchange needed to differentiate itself and establish a foothold in a fiercely competitive environment. To stand out, the company partnered with Huawei to offer superior IDC services with faster response times to requirements, more flexible capacity expansion, and more reliable data centers overall.

To speed up the construction process, CloudExchange chose a Huawei prefabricated modular data center solution. With most devices pre-installed and pre-tested in the factory, the data center only needs to be hoisted onsite, reducing the construction period of the entire project to just seven months. The Huawei FusionDC solution also supports online capacity expansion, with each layer functioning as an independent data center unit, allowing for quick and interruption-free capacity expansion.

CloudExchange’s new data center is the first Uptime Institute Tier IV prefabricated data center in Africa, which means it offers ultra-reliable uptime. Huawei worked closely with CloudExchange to deploy dual-socket diesel generators, dual-fuel tanks, and equipment rooms in a limited space, maximizing space utilization and gaining Uptime Institute Tier IV certification in a significantly streamlined process.

Glad Dibetso, CEO of CloudExchange, expressed his satisfaction with the fruitful partnership with Huawei, saying that their cooperation has quickly obtained market recognition and certification from the Uptime Institute. He hopes that their project will continue to boost ICT industry development in West Africa and propel the ongoing rise of the entire continent.

The Gui’an Huawei Cloud Data Center is the world’s largest Huawei Cloud data center with an operational capacity of over 1 million servers. It serves as a key facility for Huawei Cloud, Huawei BP&IT and consumer cloud services. Located in Gui’an New District, Guizhou Province, construction began in August 2017 and it is one of two main Huawei Cloud data centers in China.

The phase 1 construction area covers approximately 480,000 square meters and is divided into three subareas. All 51 buildings in phase 1 have been completed with nine being used as the data center facility and the rest as auxiliary facilities.

Huawei Cloud’s Gui’an data center is designed with green and intelligent technologies to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions. With a PUE of 1.12, it is one of the most efficient in the industry.

Some of the measures taken include:

• using direct ventilation for natural cooling,
• developing a medium-temperature chilled water system that reuses waste heat,
• introducing liquid cooling technology to increase efficiency and reduce PUE,
• applying AI to balance loads among servers and increase resource utilization, and
• replacing copper components with power semiconductors to reduce power loss.

When operating at full capacity, the data center is expected to save 1.01 billion kWh of electricity per year and offset more than 810,000 tons of carbon emissions.

The Uptime Institute’s Global Data Center Survey 2022 suggests that over the next five years, data centers should play a role in energy conservation and carbon reduction, rather than being a hindrance to it.

With this in mind, Huawei plans to change the way people used to plan, build and operate data centers during the construction. Huawei’s Dongguan Cloud Data Center T1 project makes noticeable progress in energy conservation and carbon reduction. Put into operation in 2019, the project’s PUE reached 1.28 in 2021.

In Part 1 of this article, we have seen how digital technology enablement contributed to the success of the T1 project. Today, we look at other advanced energy-savings technologies which were employed.

AI-based PUE optimization
The T1 project employs an AI-based iCooling solution to decrease the energy consumption of the cooling system, which typically uses over 30% of a data center’s energy. This solution constantly monitors the energy consumption of all cooling subsystems and delivers the most efficient cooling strategy based on factors like current IT load and outdoor temperature.

Green construction and material recycling
The construction of traditional data centers often results in a high amount of waste and excessive water and power consumption. To address these issues, the T1 project employs a prefabricated modular solution where core components and systems are manufactured and pre-tested in a factory before being delivered and assembled on-site like LEGOs. This approach significantly reduces water usage and construction waste by 80%, reduces carbon emissions by 90%, and recycles up to 85% of materials, promoting eco-friendly construction and maximizing resource recovery.

Efficient and energy-saving devices
As data centers consume a large amount of energy, the use of energy-efficient and energy-saving devices is crucial to reducing energy consumption. The Huawei FusionPower6000 is utilized for power supply and distribution, providing a single source of power for each row, which boosts end-to-end efficiency to 95.5%. The cooling system is equipped with high-performance fans and wet film humidifiers to enhance energy efficiency. Additionally, smart modules are arranged in the equipment room to divide cold and hot aisles, optimizing heat exchange efficiency.

By using energy-saving technology, data centers can reduce their impact on the environment, contribute to a more sustainable future, and demonstrate their commitment to environmental responsibility.

Source: Huawei Digital Power

Huawei’s Dongguan Cloud Data Center T1 project (T1 project for short) is among the two green data centers in China to have been selected as a typical application case of key energy-saving technologies 2021 by the National Energy Conservation Center for the large amounts of energy it has saved during operation. Put into operation in 2019, the project’s PUE reached 1.28 in 2021.

Today, we look at how digital technology enablement contributed to the success of the T1 project.

Due to insufficient simulation of air ducts and airflows at the design phase and backward onsite assembly and construction, traditional data centers have a higher PUE than the designed one. By contrast, the T1 project uses digital design, simulation, and manufacturing, reaching a designed PUE in actual operation.

Next week, we will look at other advanced energy-savings technology which was employed in the T1 project.

Source: Huawei Digital Power