The rapid growth of AI has swiftly accelerated the demand for high-performance data centers. Designing an environment that can stay ahead of this high-functioning data processing requires a reliable infrastructure that maximizes uptime while minimizing high-intensity energy demands. While traditional methods for maintaining uptime have largely relied on heavy electric loads and water usage, today’s evolving energy grid constraints, conservation requirements, and worldwide decarbonization targets are requiring technology leaders to prioritize sustainability as much as building performance.
Across industries, data centers are one of the most energy-intensive types of buildings, consuming 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of standard commercial office buildings and collectively using about 2% of the nation’s total electricity consumption. HVAC equipment is responsible for as much as 40% of electricity use within data centers, making building system optimization critical to achieving net-zero sustainability.