Future of the cloud? From spas to orbital space data centers

Artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed, forcing a rethink of how the power-hungry servers behind the boom can coexist with — and draw less from — the environment.

Data centers form the backbone of the internet, underpinnning nearly every digital service. But the facilities require huge amounts of energy and water, and are often considered an eyesore and a burden on the communities that house them. As more AI workloads are scaled into the facilities, the pressure on power supply chains will intensify.

There’s going to be a “tipping point,” where the architecture of data centers will no longer be fit for purpose, Simone Larsson, head of enterprise AI at Lenovo, told CNBC.

In the face of a looming digital infrastructure crisis, tech giants and developers of the expensive infrastructure are exploring sustainable and out-of-the-box solutions.

Traditional data centers are failing to efficiently power AI workloads and falling short of sustainability targets and compliance demands, according to the “Data Center of the Future” November study carried out by Lenovo in partnership with Opinium.

The study found that the majority of IT decision makers prioritize technology partners who reduce energy, but only 46% of those surveyed said their current data center designs supported sustainability goals.

In the face of those challenges, Lenovo has worked with architects from Mamou-Mani and engineers from AKT II to design data centers that can integrate better with the environment and address energy limitations. The outcome: designs that see data centers sequestered underground by utilizing disused tunnels or bunkers, or suspended in the air to make use of 24/7 energy from solar power.

In so-called data villages, servers are stacked in a modular format near urban areas, allowing excess heat from the data centers to be transferred to power local amenities like schools or homes. The same goes for data center spas, which would see excess heat from data centers used in a wellbeing setting. The heat generated by the spa could in turn be repurposed to power cooling technology for the data center.

But there’s a catch: even Lenovo admits its designs will likely not be feasible until 2055 or later.

The company said its study was designed to spark discussion and acknowledged that significant regulatory changes would be required before any such designs could be deployed. The cost and engineering complexity of some of the concepts, as well as legal and scalability constraints, also present challenges.

Adoption would also vary widely by region. The U.S., for example, is more likely to adopt large-scale, ultra-high-density campuses due to high demand, more available land, and a relatively flexible regulatory environment, said Perkins Liu, senior research analyst at S&P Global’s 451 Research. Meanwhile, Europe has a more constrained grid and stricter regulations, he said.

That’s not to say that novel data center designs are an entirely new concept. In 2018, Microsoft deployed a submarine-like data center 117 feet below sea level to take advantage of the cooling benefits of seawater and tidal power to enable the project to be powered fully by renewable energy.

There are also many examples of operators redistributing heat from the facilities to warm nearby residences. Last summer, excess heat from an Equinix data center was used to heat the Olympic swimming pools in Paris.

From Google’s “moonshot” Suncatcher project, Alibaba and Zhejiang Lab’s “Three-Body Computing Constellation” initiative, to Nvidia‘s Starcloud — the orbital data center race is heating up. Smaller players including Edge Aerospace and Loft Orbital are also exploring the tech.

It might seem like the stuff of science fiction — and indeed, Google cites a short story from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov as inspiration for its idea to tap directly into the sun as a source of energy – but these proposals are being explored more concretely by tech giants.

The EU-funded ASCEND study, in partnership with Thales Alenia Space, explored the feasibility of launching centers into orbit using robotic technologies.

Thales Alenia Space is now developing the technology required for this process with the goal of conducting a first in-orbit demonstration mission in 2028. In November, Starcloud, the startup backed by Nvidia, sent a chip into outer space that’s 100 times more powerful than any GPU compute that has been in space before.

Around 70 million euros ($82 million) of private capital has been invested in space-based data center projects since 2020, according to a report from the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI).

However, in the near term, orbital data centers remain out of reach as the cost of sending such equipment into space remains a significant barrier.

“Radiation-hardened hardware, cooling in the vacuum of space, and the extremely high cost of launching large, power-dense compute systems into orbit are major hurdles,” said S&P Global’s Liu. Challenges also include reliable high-speed communication, space debris, and the difficulties of maintenance, he said.

ESPI’s cost model for data centers depends on the success of Starship’s launch price being as low as $10 million.

“If you asked me now, this is unrealistic in the near-term,” said Jermaine Gutierrez, research fellow at ESPI. “In the long run, however, the question is whether terrestrial developments and continued cost savings thereof, outpace the cost savings from deployment in space.”

Lenovo’s Larsson said that its futuristic data center plans have co-existence and “symbiosis” at their core. This includes leveraging some of the heat from the data centers for use in the community and by other involved stakeholders.

James Cheung, partner at Mamou-Mani, told CNBC that another goal was to make the facilities more visually appealing so that they aren’t viewed as “faceless mega-juggernauts of boxes.”

He explained how the architects used techniques like biomimicry to explore how natural algorithms can show the most efficient ways to disperse heat.

“We interact with [data centers] every day, with our computers and with our phones. But this gentle giant, in the background, is putting massive pressure on water and our resources,” he said.

In order for many of these innovations to take place, experts told CNBC that regulation will need to be amended and new policies implemented to address the growing energy demands of AI and data centers.

“Data center operators could adopt green technologies at their wish, but it will have to be justified financially,” said S&P Global’s Liu. He added that the grid will need to be upgraded and renewable energy needs to be built out quickly for this to happen.

Simply retrofitting data centers won’t always work, said Lenovo’s Larsson, as it leaves operators “trying to enter into a cycle that’s been broken to begin with.”

Instead, companies will need to think outside of the box and try to “figure out what regulatory constraints would need to be flexed in order to not only serve the people on the planet but also the profits [of companies],” she said.