A global firm with offices in Luxembourg is tackling the issue of data centres’ massive energy consumption, developing data centres with carbon footprints half the size of their predecessors.
Thanks to a funding round which raised €26m from French investment management firm RGREEN INVEST, DataQube Global Ltd plans to roll out the scalable units it has spent the last three years developing in Cambridge UK.
According to a press release, tests from June 2021 found that the first modular data centre reduced CO2 emissions by 56%.
Under the Paris Agreement, signatory nations including Luxembourg have pledged to reduce global warming to between 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial levels by cutting carbon emissions. After a year-on-year rise, before the pandemic global emissions began to slow and even dropped in 64 countries. However, at the November 2021 COP26 UN climate summit, countries were asked to make more ambitious pledges on cutting emissions. According to the European Environment Agency, electricity generation is the largest greenhouse gas emitting sector in Europe.
“Today, the Internet already consumes 10% of the world’s electricity, and if we don’t change the way data centres are built, this figure could rise to 50% by 2030,” explains Philippe Rechsteiner, CFO of DataQube. “The solution developed by DataQube makes it possible to halve the power consumption of data centres, which is enormous. Without this major innovation, it will be almost impossible to reverse the current trend.”
DataQube claims to be able to deliver its data centres within six months, and to be able to half the cost of construction thanks to upstream manufacturing and by focusing on installations in empty urban infrastructure. This, it says, enables the creation of local centres deployed closer to the end user, reducing data transport and associated energy outlay. In 2021, it was hired by Glendine Developments to install 5G compliant data centre services in two vacant properties in Basingstoke, UK, a project valued at £20m. The first iteration of 200KW DataQube module is expected to go live in Q3 of 2022.
RGREEN INVEST, which has €1.3bn in AUM, invested in DataQube through its Infrasgreen IV fund, dedicated to financing the transition towards sustainable energy and climate change adaptation. Established in 2010 by Nicolas Rochon, a third of its investments have been in wind and 43% in solar energy while energy efficiency investments make up 18% of its portfolio.
