Axios House: AI sparks drive for cleaner data centers and other innovations

NEW YORK – Data center developers have shown interest in building AI hubs in a more sustainable way, speakers said at Axios House at Climate Week and the UN General Assembly.

Why it matters: The AI data center boom coincides with an inflection point for the energy industry as it balances surging power demand with clean energy transition targets.

• Axios' Amy Harder spoke with Katharina Beumelburg, Heidelberg Materials chief sustainability and new technologies officer, and IBM Cloud GM and CTO Hillery Hunter at the Sept. 22 event. The event was sponsored by SLB New Energy.

What they're saying: AI can be used to further sustainability goals. "AI and digitalization [are] helping us in a lot of different ways," Heidelberg said.

• An example is using AI in recipes for concrete mixing to get the optimized characteristics for special projects, Heidelberg said.
• AI can also be used to measure progress toward sustainability goals. "We use a lot of data analytics in terms of getting to the right reporting in terms of understanding where our emissions are," Heidelberg said. "I think there is still a lot of opportunity in this."
• "AI is being used extensively to monitor and optimize data centers that are also delivering AI," Hunter said.

State of play: Heidelberg explained how cement manufacturers, which produce one of the most used materials in the world, are using carbon capture technologies in their efforts to reduce emissions.

• "Since June, we are able to capture the carbon from the process," she said. "So, actually, when you produce cement, one-third of the carbon is from energy that we use, and two-thirds are out of the process itself. And what we do is we produce the regular cement, capture the carbon, and then store it."
• Heidelberg also said she is seeing demand from data center developers to use greener cement in their building processes.

• "I think everybody is searching for all different kinds of levers to really reduce carbon emissions due to the very high carbon footprint, and so obviously it comes to the building materials as well," she said.

The bottom line: Construction and technology companies are seeking the most effective way to build data centers sustainably.

• "From the perspective of our cloud data centers, we're working on getting to a place this year where we have 75% of our energy supplied to those cloud facilities through renewable energy," Hunter said.

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, SLB New Energy president Gavin Rennick explained how big tech companies are thinking about decarbonization.

• "There's a broad need for decarbonization across all industries. … We're working with all of the hyperscalers at the moment," Rennick said.
• SLB New Energy is meeting the challenge of decarbonization by helping businesses build efficient data centers quickly and provide them with clean power, he said.