Today at re:Invent, for the first time ever, AWS gave some insights into how efficiently the company’s data centers are using energy for the first time. On average, these numbers already look good, but a site of one of AWS’ cloud regions even achieves a near-perfect PUE score.
In conversations about data center sustainability, PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness, usually comes up within a few sentences. This number indicates how much of the energy a data center uses is actually converted into computing power. The goal, of course, is to have as little energy lost as possible. A score of 1 means an efficiency of 100 percent, meaning there is no loss. PUE already plays an important role, but will only become more so with the Energy Efficiency Directive coming into effect in the European Union.
A PUE of 1, where all the energy a data center absorbs actually ends up in the hardware in the racks, is obviously very difficult. For that, everything must be optimally designed and also optimally interconnected. A PUE of 1.2 is considered a good score these days. Worldwide, the PUE is at 1.8. That’s still quite a distance from that score.
What PUE does AWS achieve?
A hyperscaler like AWS has the advantage of designing and developing virtually everything in the data center itself. That means it can include PUE as a criterion from the ground up. So it is to be expected that hyperscalers will do well in this regard, assuming they are working on this. The numbers shared by AWS today certainly do not disappoint in that regard either. On average, all cloud regions combined achieve a PUE of 1.15 in 2023. This falls just short of Google Cloud’s 1.10. Microsoft is also not very far off. Many of that company’s data centers for which PUE data is available are also below 1.2, with outliers down and up.
So the differences between the three major public cloud providers in terms of PUE are not huge. Nor was that expected. An average PUE score of 1.15 for AWS is definitely a neat score. The best-performing region of AWS, however, takes it up a notch. A site in that region (in Europe) achieves a PUE score of 1.04. That’s very close to the perfect score. Read more about this and other things around sustainability via this link.
The reason AWS (and probably the other hyperscalers) can achieve this kind of low PUE score, according to the company, is in how it designs the electrical circuits and further mechanics. It has also advanced hybrid cooling systems (air and liquid) and continues to optimize the positioning of equipment in racks. The new components included in the equipment AWS deploys for AI purposes also continue to achieve an excellent PUE of 1.08, according to the company.
Also read: Data centers play a pivotal role in sustainability discussion