China has unveiled an action plan for the green development of data centres, specifying a set of targets to accelerate the low-carbon transition of the sector.
By 2025, the average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of data centres, a metric for energy efficiency, will be lowered to less than 1.5, according to the plan jointly issued on Tuesday (July 23) by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and two central bureaus.
The plan also aimed to increase the utilization rate of renewable energy in data centres by 10 per cent annually.
As an important infrastructure for the development of new quality productive forces, data centres are among the sectors where energy use grows rapidly in China. It is expected that data centres’ power usage in the country will climb by 15 per cent annually.
The action plan proposed that by the end of 2030, data centres across the country will see their average PUE, and energy and carbon efficiency per unit of computing power reach internationally advanced levels, with the utilisation rate of renewable energy further improved.
To meet the aforementioned goals, China will improve the layout of data centres, tighten the energy and water efficiency requirements for new projects, facilitate the energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation of existing projects and promote the application of energy-saving technologies and equipment, according to the plan.
Industrial data show that China’s total computing power scale now ranks second in the world. By the end of 2023, the number of data centre racks in use topped 8.1 million in the country.
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