Towards a Sustainable and Scalable Digital Infrastructure for AI and HPC
Today, the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), the nonprofit organization bringing hyperscale innovations to all, and infrastructure Masons (iMasons), a nonprofit professional association of individuals connected and empowered to build a greater digital future for all, announce a new collaboration related to sustainability initiatives centered on the iMasons Climate Accord (ICA). By aligning the OCP Community’s ability to impact the data center supply chain and iMasons reach with the end user community, they will address one of the industry's greatest challenges, creating sustainable and scalable digital infrastructure capable of meeting the requirements for AI and HPC from the data center to the edge.
To start, this new alliance will focus on standardizing a taxonomy for supplier carbon disclosures related to data center materials and equipment, including a digital carbon label providing both calculated carbon levels and its corresponding methodology. This work effort is led by Google, Meta, Microsoft and Schneider Electric, and is critical for building a more sustainable industry as Scope 3 emissions comprise the vast majority of the carbon footprint of data centers. Almost all of those Scope 3 emissions are upstream and take the form of embodied carbon in the materials and equipment that go into building these facilities. In order to meet net-zero carbon goals, the industry needs to organize its supply chain to measure, report on, and draw down the embodied carbon of data centers.
“We are very pleased to build our relationship with iMasons, and the timing could not be better as the data center build-out to scale, driven by AI, is upon us. To better support the ecosystem and our community, it is clear to us at OCP that the current brute force method of building more and bigger data centers is not sustainable without behavior and technological shifts. Such shifts will start with proper standardized methods for measurement, allowing OCP’s data center facilities, building and equipment vendor members to adjust their products and end-users to make sustainability part of their buying decision," said George Tchaparian, CEO at the Open Compute Project Foundation.
There are many opportunities to create complementary standardizations to carbon disclosure, including metrics for measuring energy consumption, water usage and heat reuse. Other efforts can explore the use of alternate low-carbon concrete and steel, and building materials such as Mass Timber. Moving forward, we are prioritizing actions with the greatest potential for long-term impact while remaining adaptable to changing circumstances and emerging opportunities.
“Achieving lasting change requires a long-term perspective that frames and sharpens our short-term actions. We are excited to collaborate with the OCP to compound our impact on digital infrastructure globally. This involves addressing carbon accounting, measurement and tracking to ensure our efforts cover the entire ecosystem, and continuously build upon these foundations for a meaningful advancement of long-term sustainability goals," said Dean Nelson, Founder and Chairman Infrastructure Masons & iMasons Climate Accord Governing Body Member.
Critical to the success of this alliance is the well-established multi-vendor data center supply chain provided by the OCP vendor member community. Upon delivering an open framework and set of best practices and standardizations, the OCP vendor members typically move rapidly to adopt and align their products accordingly. When these enhanced products are then produced with full carbon disclosure information for showcase in the OCP Marketplace, further stimulating end-user demand for products that comply.
“This collaborative initiative between iMasons and OCP, aimed at tackling carbon transparency in digital infrastructure, marks a pivotal moment in advancing sustainability within our sector. By leveraging our extensive industry network and community-driven ethos, alongside OCP's dedication to open innovation and community-led standardizations, we are primed for transformative and positive changes to best serve the future of our work and communities," said Miranda Gardiner, Executive Director iMasons Climate Accord.
“Sustainability is both a responsibility and opportunity for the digital infrastructure industry to take ownership of its environmental impact and drive positive change. The alliance established between iMasons and OCP is a good example of how the industry needs to rally to meet the challenges of building tomorrow's AI capable data centers. Together the OCP and iMasons have the opportunity to inspire and empower industry stakeholders to integrate carbon reductions into their overall corporate strategies and operations, by steadily advancing better decision-making and accountability across the industry,” said Ashish Nadkarni, GVP/GM, Worldwide Infrastructure Research at IDC.
Support from Key Stakeholders
“Aligned with Google’s commitment to open ecosystems and goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain, we support the effort to develop and scale a common language for carbon reporting of digital infrastructure, “said Partha Ranganathan, VP and Fellow at Google. “Through our participation on the Board of Open Compute Project and Governing Board of iMasons Climate Accord, we’re excited to help establish a consistent method that enables transparency and drives meaningful progress toward a more sustainable data center industry.”
Schneider Electric
“By joining forces, the OCP and the iMasons Climate Accord have created critical mass behind the effort to standardize the reporting of embodied carbon in our industry. This will help vendors to streamline this process across multiple customers, and help the industry as a whole ensure that decarbonization efforts are on pace," said Alexander Rakow, Data Center Sustainability Lead at Schneider Electric
About Infrastructure Masons
Infrastructure Masons (iMasons) is a global, nonprofit, professional association of individuals connected and empowered to build a greater digital future for all. Since its launch in 2016, the organization has brought together 6,000 individuals across 130 countries, a community representing USD 200+ billion in infrastructure projects. iMasons provides an agnostic platform for members to connect, grow, and give back across four strategic pillars: Education, Inclusion, Innovation, and Sustainability. To learn more, visit imasons.org or LinkedIn.
About the Climate Accord
The Climate Accord is a coalition united on decarbonization of digital infrastructure. Launched by Infrastructure Masons in 2022, the organization has mobilized a community of 250+ member companies spanning data centers, networks, cloud computing, energy, products and software. With a combined market cap of $6T dollars, their purchasing power will help accelerate the industry to net-zero carbon. The Climate Accord Governing Body includes AWS, Digital Realty, Google, iMasons, Meta, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric. Members are working toward industry-wide adoption of an open standard to report carbon in materials, and equipment and power to create a maturity model to track progress. For more information, visit climateaccord.org or LinkedIn.
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