Switzerland: Empa begins research into data center waste heat

Swiss research body Empa has announced the launch of a new research project on data centers, namely ECO-Qube. The project is in response to the increasing demand for data and the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and the Internet of Things (IoT), which requires large amounts of data to be processed rapidly. Empa outlines that to make this possible, data processing must be situated closer to where it was created, for example, micro data centers in local neighborhoods. With this in mind, the team is hoping to utilize the excess heat from these facilities to heat these neighborhoods. 

While at first this will be tested at Empa’s research building, two other locations in Turkey and Netherlands will also be the subject of the study.

Speaking about the goal of the project, Çağatay Yılmaz, ECO-Qube project leader, says they hope to reduce both the ‘energy demand’ and CO2 emissions of small data centers by ‘one-fifth each.’

Philipp Heer, Head of the Energy Hub (ehub) at Empa, commented: "For us, it is interesting to consider the micro data center not just as an electrical consumer, but as a dynamic component in the overall system that we can use so that calculations take place when it makes sense ecologically. The coupling of the electrical and thermal world with the IT infrastructure and data processing offers great potential for optimization towards sustainable operation." 

The project is set to last around three years.