Microsoft ramped up its commitments at this time to preserve water and vitality in its information facilities, laying out new cooling tech and methods that might push notoriously thirsty and energy hungry servers previous their present limits. The firm’s newest environmental pledge comes because it plans to dramatically increase the variety of information facilities it operates all over the world, a transfer that might put extra stress on drought-stricken communities until the corporate finds methods to make use of much less water.

Microsoft plans to slash the quantity of water its information facilities use by 95 p.c by 2024, with the aim of “eventually” eliminating water use. That builds on a dedication it made final 12 months to turn into “water positive” by the tip of the last decade, that means it will replenish extra water than it makes use of for its operations. In 2020, Microsoft additionally dedicated to turning into carbon destructive by the identical deadline, that means it plans to attract down and retailer extra planet-heating CO2 than it releases.

Microsoft additionally introduced different sustainability efforts at this time that might decrease greenhouse gasoline emissions inside and out of doors the corporate. It’s in search of constructing supplies for its information facilities which might be much less carbon-intensive, together with analysis into bricks made with algae and structural tubes made with mushrooms. It additionally previewed a brand new instrument known as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which may help organizations monitor their carbon dioxide emissions.

But the large dedication includes the info facilities. Data facilities like Microsoft’s are filled with servers which allow folks to retailer information, ship messages, and store and recreation on-line. All of that exercise makes use of up numerous vitality and generates warmth. Overheating can have an effect on servers’ efficiency and reliability, however blasting them with air con drives up electrical energy use and greenhouse gasoline emissions. It’s doable to make use of water to chill down servers, however water has turn into an more and more scarce useful resource in most of the arid locations the place information facilities function.

A typical information heart makes use of about as a lot water as a metropolis with a inhabitants of about 30,000 to 40,000 folks, or about 3 to five million gallons of water a day, says Venkatesh Uddameri, professor and director of the Water Resources Center at Texas Tech University. Microsoft tells The Verge that its information facilities use much less water than that, though it varies throughout totally different areas and climates.

Microsoft’s information facilities presently use adiabatic cooling, which depends on exterior air to chill down temperatures inside. It’s a system that makes use of much less electrical energy than air con and fewer water than cooling towers. But when temperatures rise above 85 levels Celsius, exterior air isn’t very useful. At that time, an evaporative cooling system kicks in, which makes use of water. It works like a “swamp cooler” — cooling the air by pushing it over or by way of water-soaked screens.

Microsoft at this time revealed two fundamental methods it plans to lean on to fulfill its water conservation targets. First: it researched how its servers carry out beneath increased temperatures, and located that it could actually set increased limits for when the facilities’ evaporative cooling programs kick in. In cooler elements of the world — together with Amsterdam, Dublin, Virginia, and Chicago — these increased set factors may, over the subsequent few years, do away with the necessity for water fully.

But Microsoft’s information facilities in desert areas, the place water shortage is a much bigger drawback, will seemingly proceed to guzzle water for years longer. Microsoft says the identical technique that may remove water use in Amsterdam and Dublin would solely cut back water consumption in desert areas by as a lot as 60 p.c by 2024.

That’s the place the second a part of Microsoft’s plan is available in. To get its water footprint right down to zero in these sizzling and dry climates, Microsoft plans to show to a brand new method to cool servers: submerging them in fluorocarbon-based liquid baths. As the servers work away, the warmth they generate causes the liquid to boil when it reaches 122 levels Fahrenheit (50 levels Celsius). The boiling liquid strikes warmth away from the servers after which turns right into a vapor that rises. The vapor hits a cooled tank lid, condenses, and rains again into the bathtub. The course of, known as two-phase liquid immersion, creates a closed-loop cooling system that cuts down on water and electrical energy use whereas eliminating warmth. It’s a technique that the corporate says was impressed by cryptocurrency miners, who additionally use big quantities of vitality and have turned to liquid immersion cooling for computing gear.

While specialists The Verge spoke to say the expertise is promising, they are saying getting it to work at scale will probably be one other problem. Microsoft simply introduced its first trial run with immersion cooling in April and says this expertise remains to be within the analysis and growth stage. Very few information facilities — in all probability fewer than 2 p.c — depend on immersion cooling, in accordance with Lucas Beran, principal analyst on the market analysis agency Dell’Oro Group.

“You also think about the scale of someone like Microsoft deploying the amount of data centers that they are building and the amount of compute they’re deploying — that’s a massive supply chain switch. That’s a massive operation switch,” Beran says. Microsoft must research and plan for a way that change will have an effect on information heart efficiency and practice employees to work in new environments, he factors out. “It’s a very large undertaking, but one that has some extremely positive potential outcomes.”

Microsoft tells The Verge it can take a phased method to rolling out its new cooling methods for information facilities. Immersion cooling would require new, specifically designed servers, and Microsoft will await its server configurations to age out earlier than changing them in current information facilities. Even the plethora of latest information facilities the corporate has deliberate will seemingly first be constructed with hybrid cooling programs because it transitions to new immersion expertise.

Microsoft plans to construct 50 to 100 new information facilities a 12 months to maintain up with demand for its cloud providers. Global web site visitors is anticipated to double by subsequent 12 months, it says. That’s an enormous alternative for the corporate, but additionally an enormous problem to the corporate’s new sustainability targets.

Tensions have risen, for instance, around data centers in Arizona, the place Microsoft opened up a brand new one this 12 months. After federal authorities declared the primary water scarcity on the Colorado River in August, Arizona faces imminent cuts to its water provide. The cuts, to date, will primarily restrict water for agriculture, however some residents are apprehensive that new information facilities within the area will solely intensify competitors for already scarce water assets.

The firm might want to tackle points distinctive to every location the place it builds a knowledge heart and pay particular consideration to locations beneath extra water stress. “There is no one-size-fits all type of solution,” says Uddameri. “You can become water positive as a company, but it’s not useful if you save all the water in one location, as an extreme case, and you create bigger deficits elsewhere.”