Amazon Web Services (AWS), the global cloud service arm of Amazon, is driving towards its sustainability goal by prioritising carbon-free energy and energy efficiency in its operations.
Aligned with the Climate Pledge Amazon co-founded in 2019, the company has a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040.
"This is why we are constantly re-evaluating how our data centres operate, working to power them with carbon-free energy and make them more energy efficient," said Annabel Lee, head of policy for Asean at AWS.
Ms Lee said AWS designs its own purpose-built chips, servers, racks and other infrastructure to be more efficient and last longer.
"We are designing our data centres to be less carbon-intensive from the ground up, and recently announced new components in power, cooling and hardware design to make our next-generation data centres more efficient," she said.
AWS is also innovating with a more efficient cooling system to reduce mechanical energy consumption by up to 46%.
This includes liquid cooling for generative artificial intelligence (AI) workload and efforts to reduce the amount of stranded power in its servers, which is energy that is available but unused or underutilised, said Ms Lee.
"Continuous innovation is at the heart of everything we do at AWS, and we are continuously improving the power efficiency of our AWS chips," she said.
For example, AWS Trainium chips for AI training reduce the training time of certain AI models from months to hours, with each iteration more energy-efficient than the last. Trainium 1 chips were 25% more efficient than comparable models, and the Trainium 2 chip is three times more efficient than Trainium 1.
"We are also investing in carbon-free energy that can help match the electricity consumed by our operations, including our data centres," said Ms Lee.
In 2023, the company met its goal to match the electricity consumed by its global operations with 100% renewable energy, seven years ahead of its 2030 target, by investing in more than 600 solar and wind projects globally.
According to the "Southeast Asia Green Economy Report 2023: Cracking the Code", there is tremendous opportunity for climate action in Thailand and Southeast Asia.
A focus on energy and natural solutions is important to fulfil climate commitments, as these sectors account for nearly 85% of Southeast Asia's total emissions reduction targets, noted the report.
The company recently announced new components in power, cooling and hardware design to make its data centres more efficient.
HUGE POTENTIAL
Ms Lee said Thailand has tremendous potential to increase the renewable energy mix by encouraging corporate procurement of renewable energy, deploying cross-border energy grids and modernising energy grids.
"We look forward to collaborating with industries and governments in the region to support Thailand's energy transition goals," she said.
Ms Lee said AWS customers find value at the intersection of digital technologies and sustainability by leveraging cloud tech for sustainability innovation and outcomes.
For example, Energy Response Co Ltd, an AWS-powered sustainability startup in Thailand, is creating AI-powered solutions to increase energy efficiency in large buildings and factories across Asia.
To encourage corporate renewable energy options regionally, AWS works with organisations such as the Asia Clean Energy Coalition to collaborate with industries and governments.
With these groups, AWS supports regulatory frameworks that incentivise varied, affordable and additional renewable power purchasing options, beyond what is available on the grid, she said.
The company also encourages market structures enabling direct procurement between suppliers and corporate consumers, and supports credible and transparent issuing, tracking and certification of competitively-priced Renewable Energy Certificates or similar instruments.
"We are committed to investing in renewable energy to decarbonise our operations and look forward to potential new investment opportunities in Thailand," said Ms Lee.
She said corporate renewable energy investments already account for much of the world's new renewables projects now, and will be particularly crucial in helping Southeast Asia accelerate its clean energy transition.
In addition to investment and associated capital, corporate renewable energy procurement helps create green jobs and grow domestic clean energy industries, without taxpayers bearing an additional cost, said Ms Lee.
In many of the grids in which AWS operates, Amazon can directly procure energy from new renewable energy projects with developers.
"In some countries, regulations and laws prohibit customers like Amazon from procuring renewable energy directly," she said.
"We are working with regulators and legislators to change policies to enable all customers to procure renewable energy."
Amazon supports comprehensive energy policies -- including for transmission planning and expansion to connect renewable resources with load, as well as generator interconnection queue reform -- to decarbonise the power grid while maintaining system reliability, said Ms Lee.
The power demand for an AWS data centre is massive.
