Carbon emissions exceed 200 million tons, and the national data center will consume four Three Gorges power plants. Without "green computing" and "green computing" energy, computing power and green computing power will be depleted

Both producers and consumers have found that computing power has become the core productivity of the information society, and it is evident that the demand for computing power is increasing. "The development of large-scale computing power needs to consume a lot of energy." Ling Wen, an academician of the CAE Member and an expert in systems engineering and energy engineering management, recently discussed the dialectical relationship between energy and computing power in the Shenzhen Research Institute of Shanghai Jiaotong University.

The National Power Investment Data Center Project under Construction

According to calculations, from 2018 to 2030, the demand for computing power from autonomous driving will increase by 390 times, and the demand for computing power from digital currencies will increase by about 2000 times... Just like the problem of smartphone overheating, China, as a global data resource powerhouse, is increasingly in need of "green computing power" for energy conservation and emission reduction in the context of the "3060" dual carbon background.

If electricity determines a country's level of industrialization, then computing power determines a country's level of digitization. Based on the primary energy in nature and the secondary energy converted by humans, Ling Wen proposed the concept of "tertiary energy": the energy in the digital world, namely computing power, transportation capacity, and storage capacity. Taking the number of data center racks nationwide as an example, it has reached 6.7 million in 2022, with 5.4 million racks of large scale or above. In recent years, the annual power consumption of data centers above designated size has increased by an average of 28%.

As a Chair Professor at the Antai School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Academician Ling Wen has served as the CEO of Shenhua Group and National Energy Investment Group. This year, he stepped down as the Vice Governor of Shandong Province and the new Chairman of the Provincial Association for Science and Technology. In the face of various experts from the second China Industry Development Summit Forum, he compared the "Three Gorges Power Station" to calculate a balance between computing power and energy:

The Three Gorges Power Station generated a total of 103.649 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2021, while the national data center consumed approximately 216.6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity during the same period, which is equivalent to consuming the electricity generated by two Three Gorges power stations. During the same period, the carbon emissions of national data centers reached 135 million tons. Ling Wen predicts that by 2030, the power consumption of China's data centers will exceed 380 billion kilowatt hours, which is close to the power generation of four Three Gorges power plants. If renewable energy is not adopted, carbon emissions will exceed 200 million tons. Obviously, this is not conducive to China achieving carbon peak as scheduled by 2030 and even carbon neutrality thereafter.

As a result, "green numbers" and "green calculations" cannot but emerge. The so-called "green computing" refers to the entire process of computing power production, supply, and service driven by green energy, involving energy conservation and emission reduction at multiple levels such as infrastructure computing resources, management platforms, and application services. Ling Wen believes that green computing power is committed to the implementation of greening and low-carbon in all aspects of the entire lifecycle of computing power. It is an inevitable choice on the supply side of computing power in the context of sustained high energy consumption, and will promote the high-quality development of the computing power industry. From the demand side perspective, the development of green computing power will further reduce computing costs. By building a public computing power service platform and strengthening the synergy and linkage between data, computing power, and economy, it will effectively empower the transformation and upgrading of green industries in various industries.

Staff conduct inspections on the operation status of the micro module room at China Unicom Guian Data Center

Currently, "East to West Calculation" has become another national level strategic project after cross regional allocation projects such as the West to East Gas Pipeline, West to East Coal Transportation, West to East Power Transmission, and South to North Water Diversion. For digital new infrastructure, it requires low-carbon coupling of energy and computing power. Academician Ling Wen suggests building a "distributed computing network" and constructing an integrated intelligent scheduling and service system. "In the transition from the traditional Internet and mobile Internet to the era of industrial Internet with computing power as the core, China has gradually established a sound computing network to further promote the coupling between the digital economy and new energy." He said that the deterministic computing network with ultra-low latency, ultra-high bandwidth, and ultra-strong computing power is of great significance for optimizing the layout of national computing resources and promoting the development of China's digital economy, which can support the exploration of a new path for the restructuring of China's cyberspace pattern during the "14th Five Year Plan" period.

The Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter learned that as one of the "Five Years and Five Cities" series activities of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Industry Research Institute, the "Zero Bay · Shenzhen Bay Science and Technology Innovation Talent Center" was unveiled on the same day, explaining the theme of "Dual Bay Integration · Industry Gathering". Gu Feng, Executive Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, stated that Shenzhen Research Institute closely aligns with international academic frontiers and national strategic needs, and strives to make efforts in the "One Big Four New" fields of new manufacturing, new economy, new finance, new energy, and big health. Chen Fangruo, Dean of Antai School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Dean of Shenzhen Research Institute, also stated that the research institute will drive the combination of academia and practice through industry research, further improve the industry research model, and write scientific research achievements on the land of our country.