To improve energy conservation and reduce carbon emissions, China has released a special action plan to promote green and low-carbon development of data centers.

"Data centers are vital infrastructure supporting the development of new quality productive forces, and they are also one of the areas with rapidly increasing energy consumption," said an official from the National Development and Reform Commission. Accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of data centers is crucially important for meeting the targets for reducing energy consumption intensity in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period, the official added.

The action plan sets goals to be achieved by 2025, including a more reasonable distribution of data centers nationwide, a reduction in average power usage effectiveness to below 1.5, and an annual average growth of 10 percent in the utilization of renewable energy.

By 2030, energy efficiency indexes of data centers will have internationally advanced levels, with a further increase in the utilization of renewable energy.

To achieve these goals, the plan outlines several key tasks in the following areas.

In improving the layout of data centers, new large and ultra-large data centers will be preferentially placed in the hub clusters of the national integrated computing network, and guide the standardized cluster development of intelligent computing centers.

Requirements for the energy and water efficiencies of new data center projects should also be implemented, and regions are encouraged to put forward higher requirements for those new projects based on actual conditions.

Regarding the use of renewable energy, the plan calls for coordinated layout of new data centers and renewable energy power generation facilities, and exploring direct green power supply for data centers.

In addition, energy-saving technology and equipment will be more widely used in data centers, such as the efficient cooling and heat dissipation technology and AI-supported energy-saving technology.

These measures aim to establish a more sustainable and environmentally friendly landscape for data centers, contributing to both environmental preservation and technological advancement in the digital age.