Sharpening Our Pencil on Carbon Measurement and Reduction

This talk will show that using carbon footprint as a common metric to assess a set of computing equipment allows straightforward comparison of technologies and designs on a “performance per carbon” basis, bringing together operational (energy use inputs) and scope 3 (production & materials inputs) carbon, along with workload-aligned performance metrics to compare technologies and systems. Our proposed methodology to apply “carbon points” to hardware components and systems can allow system-level, rack-level, and data-center-level quantification of detailed carbon footprints, which can then be optimized and reduced. You cannot improve what you cannot measure, and we believe that carbon footprint can be used today as a successful common metric for comparison, decision-making, and optimization. We will outline our database of footprint calculations and comparisons with real data center systems, and we will review our success in bringing carbon-advantaged computing to large-scale deployment in several real customer scenarios worldwide.