Top insights for IT pros
From cybersecurity and big data to cloud computing, IT Brew covers the latest trends shaping business tech in our 4x weekly newsletter, virtual events with industry experts, and digital guides.
Microsoft has announced that it is building two new data centers that are partially made out of wood in a bid to shave down its carbon emissions.
The wood in question is cross-laminated timber (CLT), a “fire-resistant prefabricated wood material,” and will be used in addition to traditional steel and concrete. According to Microsoft, the use of CLT can be “cost effective” for data center construction because it takes less time to install and requires less skilled labor.
The tech giant estimates that the hybrid construction model used to build the two Northern Virginia data centers will reduce its embodied carbon emissions—the amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction of a project—by 35% when compared to conventional steel construction and 65% when compared to precast concrete construction.
Go green. The experiment is part of Microsoft’s efforts to decarbonize its data center and construction operations, as well as its goal to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits by 2030. The tech giant said its indirect emissions increased by 30.9% between 2020 and 2024 because of its growth in data centers and the hardware associated with them.
Wood is good? IT Brew spoke with several sustainable computing experts to scope out the potential impact of Microsoft’s latest experiment. Benjamin Lee, a professor of electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, applauded the tech company’s recent consideration of building materials but pointed out that the experiment does not account for emissions that would be derived from operating the facility.
“I’m not sure what percentage of total emissions associated with the data centers is in the facility itself, but my guess is that most of it is in the semiconductor manufacturing and the energy required to run all that hardware,” he said.
Still, Andrew A. Chien, William Eckhardt professor in computer science at the University of Chicago, told IT Brew that the move to leverage CLT is a notable development for the industry.
“There’s a lot of debate as to whether it’s a large step or a small step, but we need all the steps,” Chien said. “So, I don’t want to criticize them for doing this. It’s good they’re doing this.”
Lee added that the effort can have a large impact on the sustainability movement within the data center industry.
“If companies like Microsoft are asking their general contractors to build with wood, that may encourage a broader industry trend,” Lee said. “And I think that that in itself is a good thing, independently of how big of an impact it’s going to have in Microsoft’s overall footprint.”