Using life cycle assessment to drive innovation for sustainable cool clouds

Addressing climate change requires accelerating the development of sustainable alternatives to energy- and water-intensive technologies, particularly for rapidly growing infrastructure such as data centres and cloud1. Here we present a life cycle assessment study examining the impacts of advanced cooling technologies on cloud infrastructure, from virtual machines to server architecture, data centre buildings and the grid. Life cycle assessment is important for early-stage design decisions, enhancing sustainability outcomes alongside feasibility and cost analysis2. We discuss constructing a life cycle assessment for a complex cloud ecosystem (including software, chips, servers and data centre buildings), analysing how different advanced cooling technologies interact with this ecosystem and evaluating each technology from a sustainability perspective to provide adoption guidelines. Life cycle assessment quantifies the benefits of advanced cooling methods, such as cold plates and immersion cooling, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (15–21%), energy demand (15–20%) and blue water consumption (31–52%) in data centres. This comprehensive approach demonstrates the transformative potential of life cycle assessment in driving sustainable innovation across resource-intensive technologies.