Author: Susanna Kass, Energy Fellow, Stanford University, Co-founders InfraPrime AG.

Throughout my journey as a data centre innovator, I have fought both for what I believe in, and what the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) Environmental Program stands for: a carbon-free future.

It’s important to start with the current generation. While the planet itself is resilient, humans are ignoring the consequences of their actions to pursue growth by depleting our ecosystems in a linear economy model that dictates ‘grab, use, and toss.’ Authentic leadership must act ethically now to embrace the responsible use of technologies like clean energy generation, critical intelligence, and grid modernisation. Leaders now have to make every moment count for the sake of those who will come after us; those who have yet even to imagine their potential.

For future generations, we need to ensure the availability of choice we have. For our industry, the way forward is the transition to Absolute Zero Digital Infrastructure.

The data centre world revolves around energy. Power plays a central role in improving the sector’s environmental footprint, affecting all aspects of the data centre lifecycle, from design and site construction to operation. Across the sector, data centres are abandoning fossil fuels and engaging in a transition to a clean energy economy. The adoption of renewable energy and energy storage is based on a breakthrough economic transformation in the energy industry, which can now deliver on its promise to power the next generation of Net Zero Data Centres. It does this with affordable, clean energy.

Today, the hyperscale cloud providers lead the way with renewable energy power purchase procurement in a way that no other industry has achieved in the past three decades. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Meta-Facebook, and Apple are each responding to clean energy requirements with massive gigawatt scale renewable energy purchases. As per their annual ESG annual statements, large data centres use Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) as proof they meet emissions reduction targets, and outline them in their carbon neutrality pledges. This information is incorporated in aggregate by the renewable energy industry. As the CEBA figures below show, since 2014, corporate customers have purchased 100+ Gigawatt of renewable energy, and 2024 was a banner year in terms of new activity, with the momentum continuing into 2026.

Clean, renewable energy development projects offer ways to a carbon free economic future. Such projects drive green jobs, economic growth, clean tech investments, and ‘green the grid.’

Source: CEBA Figure 1 Renewable Energy Deal Tracker

Meeting power availability challenges in data centres’ futures

There is keen awareness of a lack of power availability, plus pressure to meet time-to-market requirements and a need for data centres to use renewable energy throughout their lifecycle and in their role as part of the supply chain. At the same time, AI technologies are causing a shift in advanced and sustainable computing, specifically using higher density GPU computing. AI technologies have demonstrated some ability to improve the accuracy of renewable energy generation and to match consumption with clean energy sources. Conventional cloud computing is expected to embed AI technologies for productivity optimisation that promises new breakthroughs in science.

But this AI functionality comes at a price. With AI adoption, energy demand is expected to rise significantly. Gartner market studies and Mission Critical Magazine projected that AI will at the least triple the capacity demand for data centres in three to six years.
gigawatt-scale renewable energy projects. Their renewable energy projects have ignited the development of the green grid globally. In addition, Net Zero Data Centre designs based on clean, on-premise energy generation can provide further support to the grid by offering backup power. When integrated with energy storage, on-premise renewable energy can be a power grid stabiliser.

At a time when renewable energy is part of the power grid mix, mass frequency stabilising mechanisms are essential. With megawatt scale baseloads, hyperscale data centres can operate continuously without connecting to the grid; net zero architectures are designed to achieve resiliency with 99.99999% uptime. Net Zero Data Centre designs deliver value by enabling operators to reach 100% green power, 100% of the time, meeting carbon neutrality goals independently from a need to access green energy from the grid. But since the grid can also be used as a reliable backup system, the expense and use of standby idle assets is alleviated, so diesel generators and other costly, yet idle, CAPEX assets can be eliminated.

The Future of Data Centers – Bring Your Own Power (BYOP)

The Future of Data Centers is a new concept that allows the data centre to act as an energy contributor and a leader both in gigawatt scale renewable energy procurement and clean energy investments. BYOP is, therefore, an enabler of the transition to green grids for the whole world.

Based on the digital reporting of time-matched, clean energy consumption, hyperscale data centres offer transparency to their carbon neutrality, and can offer on-premise clean energy generation to supplement the grid. An increasing number of power utilities are publicising the challenges involved in meeting current data centre power demands and the anticipated growth in demand due to the adoption of AI. And that’s before we consider meeting these increasing needs with green energy.

In recent years, rack power densities in data centres have grown substantially. The Uptime Institute numbers from just over a decade ago put the average power densities per rack in the 4-5 kW range. By 2020, that was up to 8-10 kW per rack. Note, though, that two-thirds of US data centres surveyed said that they were already experiencing peak demands in the 16-20 kW per rack range. The latest numbers from 2025 show 10% of data centres reporting rack densities of 20-29 kW per rack, 7% of racks at 30-39 kW, 3% at 40-49 kW per rack, and 25% at 50 kW or greater.

Figure 2 Onsite carbon-free energy sources comparison: fuel cells provide controllable, 24/7 energy Clean energy with hydrogen/ammonia RNG, Generate 5x energy of 20 MW of solar PV, using Use 193 times less land, fulfilling the requirement for onsite clean power generation

Deploying on-premise, clean generation extends power to a grid that doesn’t currently run on green energy 24/7. Green power from new energy storage technologies have energy densities substantially higher than traditional batteries, enabling longer-term operation without grid connection – or better support of the grid. Fuel cells (gas batteries) can be used for prime and back-up power to clean energy generation. Technologies using green power (produced by renewables) can play an important role in the Future of Data Centre, as the Apple Data Centre illustration above shows.

Absolute Zero – 24/7 on-premise, carbon free energy generation

Absolute Zero is the most ambitious target set for the data centre industry to date.

While net zero in the data centre often relies on the use of offsets and/or use of on-premise clean energy generation with storage (the grid is not 24/7 green), Absolute Zero is achieved by eliminating carbon emissions from data centre operations and physically removing greenhouse gases (GHG) from the atmosphere. With Absolute Zero, no release of GHG emissions to the atmosphere can be physically verified. (Absolute Zero is a necessary term; there are no scenarios where there are no unavoidable emissions, hence “Zero” on its own cannot be used.) Data centres can remove emissions through carbon removal processes during operation and in the supply chain to become carbon neutral. When the data centre removes more carbon emissions than it emits, it is called carbon negative.

Data centres traditionally rely on UPS (uninterruptible power supplies), batteries, and back-up generators. The latter typically burn fossil fuels, causing carbon emissions to be released into the atmosphere.

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) separate out the carbon emissions, capturing them in the process, and store emissions without releasing them into the atmosphere until the CO2 can be reused. Data centres can transition to the carbon free economy and negative carbon power generation by choosing fuel other fossil fuel.

Clean energy pioneer Microsoft started to use fuel cell technology a decade ago. In 2013, it worked with the National Fuel Cell Research Centre at the University of California, Irvine, to test the idea of powering server racks with SOFC systems (created by InfraPrime co-founder, Dr. Alberto Ravagnifor) for 24/7 on-premise prime power generation. The system has experienced no downtime performance, does not use grid power, and operates in island mode 24/7.

The project was a huge success. In 2017 Microsoft inaugurated its Advanced Energy Lab with a cable cutting ceremony.

Figure 3 Microsoft Advanced Energy Lab, powering server racks with SOFC fuel cells systems for 24/7 on premise prime power generation

This “Stark and Simple” architecture demonstrated superior energy efficiency and systems reliability without grid connection, and without use of traditional back-up diesel generators. It is an innovation design for the data center industry, earning Microsoft a prestigious DCD award for Mission Critical Power Innovation Design.

Figure 4: comparison of the primary power delivery efficiency between the traditional centralized power generation and the on premise prime power generation with fuel cells.

In 2018, Mark Monroe and Sean James from the Microsoft Advanced Data Center Energy Labs achieved a moonshot moment by introducing the use of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells to replace the backup diesel generator. PEM fuel cells are commonly used in the automotive industry because, like diesel engines, they are quick to turn on and off, and can follow a load cycle. The fast reaction and load following capabilities are well suited to backup power needs at data centers; the project included the development of hydrogen safety protocols for next generation of data centers design.

InfraPrime has also developed a zero-design modular architecture that can integrate power generation technologies utilizing different fuels. When green fuels, green molecules like hydrogen, ammonia, and renewable natural gas are used as energy input, the generated power has a zero carbon or negative carbon content. The capacity of a single fuel cell generator ranges from 60- 240kW, the capacity of a fuel cell is at 1 megawatt in a module. The system is ideal for edge, AI Machine Learning, and colo data center deployments. Megawatt modules can be customized for capacity that is suitable for hyperscaler deployments.

The architecture of the Absolute Zero Data Center is equivalent to a microgrid, which delivers resilient, reliable, affordable carbon free energy to the data center and grid resilience services to the community.

Figure 5. The Future of Data Center integrates grid-scale and on prem power generation and energy storage technologies, green electrons, and green molecules.

Figure 6: The data center of the future on premise with grid-integrated power generation for back-up, 24/7 carbon free power generation and heat reuse.

The Future of Data Center – Utility Net Zero Availability Zones

The Future of Data Center does not disconnect from the grid, rather, it becomes grid interactive to ensure cloud and AI services are resilient, sustainable, and affordable, and in so doing, future proofs their growth potential. The result is a triple bottom line of much lower capex for redundant assets, much higher utilization through multiple uses of common assets (ex. energy infrastructure), maximized investment efficiency for renewable power investments, clean energy generation, the elimination of the need of backup assets – and Absolute Zero carbon content.

In this new model, data centers transition from an energy customer to a contributor to the local grid. When data center and utility grid operators each contribute to clean energy generation, green grid is made possible.

The design concept of Availability Zones, which originated in the data center sector, may be applied to the utility grid. The electric grid assets operate to maximize power availability for all stakeholders to reach the full potential of power availability and concurrently, deliver cost efficiency at utility scale at utility net zero availability zones by regions.

Figure 7: Zero design architecture of Utility Availability Zones

In an availability zone design, and each zone operates to maintain resiliency. Utility Available Zones are designed with grid interactive services for uptime performance to support hyperscalers’ Service Level Agreements (SLA), to reliably power hyperscalers’ mission critical business operations, to enable load orchestration to shed data center load, to efficiently share resources to maintain data center resiliency, and simultaneously maintaining 99.99999-99.999999999% uptime performance. Both contributors – data center and grid – are transparent in forecasting demand, share resources, collaborate to shorten the time to resume normal operations from natural disasters or climate change events, and make continuous improvements through shared knowledge and technological grid resilience innovation across the region.

Utility Availability Zones can themselves achieve Net Zero with clean energy development, and with data centers’ renewable energy investments, time-matched carbon free energy consumption monitoring, on premise clean energy generation back up power, all working interactively to green the grid.

The Future of Data Center – Circular Ecosystem Lifecycle

The Future of the Data Center will take advantage of a circular ecosystem. The Life Cycle phases of data center adhere to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, which accounts for the environmental impact of different activities throughout the life cycle:

• Depletion of raw materials
• Process for manufacturing of materials, products, construction
• Transport of materials to site(s)
• Consumption of materials, operation throughout commissioning
• Decommissioning Data Centers and materials end of life

The Future of Data Center consumes resources throughout its lifecycle and shares a symbiotic relationship in resources with the environment and the communities.

Figure 8: Future of the Data Center circular ecosystem, adhering to the Life cycle phases of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044

The Future of Data Center – Emission Reuse System

The Future of Data Center looks to achieve a symbiotic relationship between the electric grid and the communities it serves. Each data center consumes massive energy, generating excess heat from compute servers. Millions of dollars are spent every year on power for the servers and to operate the cooling technologies needed to cool them. But it is possible to alleviate heat waste and emissions into the environment. In fact, the European Commission has enacted legislation which imposes heat recovery as a mandatory requirement for the build of new data centres.

Figure 9: InfraPrime multi-energy zero architecture, integrating power and gas grids. The CO2 emission reuse network system provides Absolute Zero energy to community

InfraPrime has also developed a zero-design modular architecture that can integrate power and gas grids. The CO2 emission reuse network system provides Absolute Zero energy to communities. It can save millions of dollars in energy expenses for the data centres and nearby communities, plus reduce the use of grid power by those communities.

The circular C02 emission system has been proven to work at megawatt scale at academic institutions, retailers, and businesses where Future of AI Edge data centres are located. The use of CO2 (R744), considered a natural refrigerant, is being adopted for cooling in commercial, industrial, and transportation applications. It has an Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP) of 0 and a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 1. It uses no water and is more efficient than a traditional water system.

As a thermal carrier, CO2 transports eight times more energy per kg than water. It uses standard equipment and smaller, flexible pipes, resulting at least 60% cost savings in installation time and equipment cost, and requires no unique skills for construction nor operation.

Figure 10: InfraPrime Absolute Zero pathway, zero carbon, zero emission, zero water, zero waste, zero embodied carbon materials

Absolute Zero – Leading Sustainability Innovation

Absolute Zero architecture provides the blueprint for a holistic approach to sustainable computing. The Future of Data Centers will be deployed with a full stack comprises of hardware, software, networking, data store systems, and interfaces to support compute capacity needs (even in the case of AI enabled data center, running high-density GPUs). While it has huge potential to be used for social good – to optimise clean grid operation or to model different climate change scenarios – AI is a disruptive mega trend. AI has proven it has escalated the power demand growth, it has the potential to jeopardise the energy infrastructure, to disrupt cloud data centres, and to render uncertain the progress of human led digital transformation.

Absolute Zero promises a sustainable lifestyle for the energy and data centre sectors that enables a just transition to the use of carbon free energy sources: 100% of electrons, 100% of the time. It allows data centres to reach their full potential for carbon neutrality, while simultaneously greening the grid and transitioning captured emissions to new value for the communities. The climate positive features of Absolute Zero Data Center include:

• resilience (anticipate, adapt, resolve, resume) at normal operation measured by zero downtime of the data center lifecycle; delivering on results with the most affordable, time to market advantage with 100 percent of electrons, 100 percent of the time delivered from clean energy sources for on premise facilities on a global scale.
• reduce (eliminate, reuse) emissions at gigatons scale across digital infrastructure; design for responsible consumption and generation of energy in a circular system, build and operate with measurable results.
• effectiveness (performance, sovereignty, security) of technologies is deployed for breakthroughs results, use of good science and evidence based framework for accuracy and consistency; machine learning is the foundation model used by data center leading experts, improved by humans to integrate AI into best-in-class practices; includes optimization for resource

The Future of Data Centers and AI

The Future of Data Centre is a circular ecosystem that achieves Absolute Zero results, operating 100% of the time, using 100% clean energy sources. It regenerates heat and electronics waste to create new value for communities and positives for the environment. Its impact is measured by its ability to:

• Improve social access to renewable power generation through the addition of renewable energy project developments that green the grid and support renewable energy project investment.
• Increase the resiliency of the local grid, ignite Utility Net Zero Availability Zones in regions to achieve SLA uptime performance, with data centre and grid operators as contributors.
• Eliminate massive heat waste and reduce energy costs and cut millions of tons of emissions by regenerating district heating (and cooling services) for local businesses and communities.
• Optimise productivity improvements with AI technologies for renewable energy generation, increase accuracy of time match clean energy consumption, and enable new capabilities that include: now-casting grid interactivity, complex weather, and climate change simulations. With GenAI it can transform the visualisation of Absolute Zero reporting and clean energy data impact analysis.

Aligning Sustainable Compute Capacity with Sovereign Policy Strategies

To ensure a just transition in the industry, sustainability leadership in the data centre sector works actively with regulators, governments, grid operators, energy service providers, and sustainability investors. The UN SDG-EP program, climate experts, researchers at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Group can help influence the creation of effective environmental policy and economic models that align sustainability policy with national clean energy standards and guidance on AI.

The ongoing discussions are not exhaustive, and they vary according to national contexts and needs, but they are the outcome of extensive work on evidence-based frameworks compiled by expert group members. The work exemplifies a science-based approach that measures and plans sustainable computing for the current and future AI needs.

Each government’s AI technical envoys are considering an AI Factory to protect its AI policy objectives, which encompass public-sector budgets, national allocations, and private-sector investments. Policy is seen as shaping and advancing sovereign AI plans that are important to economic growth, cutting-edge science, and national scale resilience to natural disasters. Such an approach is strategic, as it includes the use of AI investments and partnerships with the Nvidia AI Nations Leadership team to develop sovereignty among AI providers.

Policy makers can consider how public- and private-sector investments provide The Future of Data Centre AI computing capacity, and how they can advance distinct types of AI policy objectives for individual countries. Scaling out AI-enabled sustainability computing can future-proof investments, and enable national growth. The scaling-out approach is proven and common countries where multiple inference data centres are to be installed, an approach replicated in urban cities in the form of edge computing availability zone(s) that broaden access with efficiency through GenAI.

With Absolute Zero, we in the data centre industry become the guardians for future generations.

Author: Susanna Kass, Energy Fellow, Stanford University, Co-founders InfraPrime AG.

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