From green computing power to green electricity, who is reshaping the carbon foo

Categories : tech

What might be the greatest challenge humanity faces in the next 30 years? The answer may vary from person to person, but what cannot be ignored is that since the birth of ChatGPT, a wave of artificial intelligence and large model technology has been set off.

When the model parameters of AIGC have broken through the trillion level, it also puts forward higher requirements for computing power. While computing power is growing exponentially, we must also see that behind high computing power is high energy consumption, which is essentially a problem of energy supply and carbon emissions.

Global technology companies have keenly realized the importance of green transformation, which is not difficult to see from their actions. In 2023, Amazon announced that the total power purchase agreement reached 8.8GW; in the same year, Meta announced the company's 3GW power purchase agreement; in May of this year, Microsoft signed a clean energy purchase agreement worth more than 10 billion US dollars.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, once publicly stated, "The two currencies of the future will be computing power and energy, and AI technology depends on the breakthrough of energy."

The challenge faced by green computing power is the carbon efficiency of computing power, which means that people not only need to pay attention to the energy consumption of computing power but also need to pay attention to the carbon emissions of computing power. Therefore, to improve the carbon efficiency of computing power, green energy supply is the only way to go.The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Envision Group, and Heyin Data, in conjunction with numerous partners from the digital industry, new energy industry, and financial institutions, released the "Green Computing Power Index for the Full Lifecycle of Data Centers White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") on June 28th of this year. This document once again confirms this trend and introduces a new concept, the "Green Computing Power Index for the Full Lifecycle of Data Centers" (hereinafter referred to as the "Green Computing Power Index").

Behind green computing power is green energy.

What is the Green Computing Power Index? How does it empower the green and low-carbon transformation in various fields? What kind of changes might it cause? What kind of impact might be brought about after achieving green computing power?

Following the concepts of "carbon neutrality" and "peak carbon," the term "green computing power" has begun to be widely discussed, stemming from a strong market demand. According to relevant forecasts, the demand for computing power in artificial intelligence will grow by more than 500 times in the next ten years.

The demand objectively exists, but the real issue is whether green electricity can supply data centers stably? A problem of computing power has actually been transformed into an issue of energy.In the view of Zhao Chuhong, Vice President of Envision Intelligence, green computing power comes from green data centers. To build green data centers, two dimensions need to be focused on. "One is from the supply side, looking at the type of electricity supply. Use renewable energy electricity, or through green electricity trading or purchasing green electricity certificates; in addition, attention should also be paid to the diversification of green energy supply and use, continuously optimizing the supply system. The second is from the consumption side, data centers are energy-intensive, in the construction of the new power system, energy consumption can be more optimized through technical means such as source-network-load storage or microgrids, and increase the coordination and stability of electricity."

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"After renewable energy becomes China's largest power source, it is inevitable to face the problems of volatility, intermittency, and randomness of new energy electricity. The stable operation of data centers requires a stable supply of electricity, and with the help of small microgrids, different types of energy, such as wind and photovoltaic storage, can be organically coordinated, and then use digital technology to play a role in energy management," said Zhao Chuhong.

According to the "Envision Zero Carbon Action Report 2024", Envision has innovated the "new generation of green energy AIDC solution", redesigned the power generation and load side architecture, and established a data center energy architecture adapted to new energy as the main energy source. While ensuring reliability, it provides a higher proportion of green electricity supply for data centers, further reducing the cost of computing power.

In addition, Zhao Chuhong pointed out that a single green electricity supply is difficult to meet the huge consumption of electricity for computing power. "We provide a variety of technical support for green certificates and green electricity trading, and obtain recognition from the entire society and the industry through certification such as blockchain." On the basis of building a new power system, Envision has joined hands with authoritative institutions to create a "one map of electricity and carbon", using graph calculation technology to capture the emission of carbon factors in the entire chain, helping us to track the whole life cycle and the whole chain of full digital tracking and analysis, providing a basis for certification for green electricity trading.Green Electricity Powers Green Production: Innovative Practices of New Green Computing Power Clusters

As people recognize the importance and significance of green computing power, how to comprehensively and objectively assess it has become a thorny issue. How to quantify various indicators and judge standards, such as how to determine the energy efficiency level and whether energy consumption has been minimized, etc.

By referring to the achievements of green data center index system construction at home and abroad, as well as the latest research on green computing power, the white paper innovatively provides the research scope and calculation method of "green computing power based on the full life cycle of data centers". The index system covers four dimensions: safe and efficient, green and low-carbon, intelligent management, and full life cycle green management, making the standards for measuring the development of data centers more comprehensive and the entire chain clearer.

From the perspective of practical implementation, under the guidance of the green computing power index, the green governance achievements of the new green computing power clusters have already shown some advantages. Envision has helped Heying Data to land the largest "source-network-load-storage" integrated project in China at one of the eight major computing power hub nodes of the "East Data West Computing" project in Zhangjiakou cluster. The new green computing power cluster represented by Heying Data (Huailai) Science and Technology Industrial Park is becoming a benchmark project for the green computing power index. After the new energy assets developed using the "source-network-load-storage" integrated model are fully connected to the grid, the proportion of renewable energy used can reach 100%, achieving the "zero-carbon" effect of "zero carbon as soon as production starts" with green electricity powering green production.

Behind the gradual greening of the Zhangjiakou computing power hub under the demonstration effect of Heying Data, the construction of a new power system is indispensable. For data centers, the natural contradiction of using new energy as the main power supply lies in the fact that data centers require stable power supply support, while new energy has the characteristics of volatility and intermittency.A technological revolution in the power grid is on the horizon, with the new type of power system being one of the important topics.

In the process of building a new type of power system, the leading AI algorithms and large models have been applied, successfully constructing a new energy system based on the intelligent IoT operating system, making it possible for the source to follow the load and for the source and load to interact. The Envision AI-driven system has accurate parameter statistics and forecasting capabilities, using the world's leading big data platform to achieve accurate forecasting of weather, power generation, and load capacity. Based on the forecast of wind and photovoltaic power generation and load characteristics, the charging and discharging plan of energy storage, the reduction plan of wind and photovoltaic, and the overall wind and photovoltaic storage aggregation output curve are calculated. Wind power and photovoltaic power generation can respond to load changes at the second level, and energy storage can respond in real-time according to demand, with green hydrogen energy serving as a long-term energy storage to regulate the demand of power generation and electricity consumption.

The new type of power system is not only the foundation and support of green computing power, but also the new energy system supported by artificial intelligence, which can be regarded as a "super intelligence" and greatly improve energy efficiency.

Envision has found in the practice of using energy vertical model to predict the weather that artificial intelligence can improve the accuracy of medium and long-term weather forecasting by 30%. In the process of transforming to a new type of power system, this "super brain" of artificial intelligence can achieve efficient management and coordination of wind power, photovoltaic, energy storage, and energy-consuming facilities, and optimize the management of future energy systems.

At the Summer Davos Forum held in June, Zhang Lei, chairman of Envision Technology Group, pointed out that artificial intelligence is essentially energy. With the emergence of various large models, a "Newton's law" in the field of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly clear: intelligence is energy. As long as there is enough energy, enough computing power can be generated, and intelligence can be produced. "Wisdom" is "energy", and "energy" is "wisdom". "Intelligence" will become a product like steel, airplanes, and automobiles. As long as there is enough energy, humans can manufacture intelligence on a large scale, which is a disruptive technological breakthrough in human history. A "two-way rush" between energy and artificial intelligence has begun.It's not just an energy issue, but also a financial one.

Based on the new type of power system, Envision has created a zero-carbon battery industrial park and a 1.5 million ton green hydrogen ammonia project in Ordos and Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, respectively. Recently, the first phase of the project, a 300,000-ton green hydrogen ammonia first phase project, has been successfully put into operation. Envision pioneered the "dynamic green production factory" model of "moving with the wind" through the zero-carbon hydrogen energy industrial park model, solving the fluctuation issues in the processes of wind and light power generation, electrolyzer hydrogen production, air separation nitrogen, and hydrogen-nitrogen synthesis ammonia, achieving dynamic integration of wind and light hydrogen production, accelerating the commercialization process of green hydrogen, and helping industries such as shipping, aviation, steel, and chemical to decarbonize.

In May of this year, as a green technology company, Envision became one of the seven Chinese companies selected in the "2024 TIME100 Most Influential Companies" list of the American "TIME" magazine.

Zhao Chuhong said: "In the future, Envision will work with partners to empower green technology and new power system technology in various scenarios. In addition, Envision will also become a user of green computing power in the future, and we will also develop large industry models, especially in the energy industry."Not only does it address the issue of green energy, but this index is also closely related to green finance. By utilizing this index system, through cooperation with financial institutions such as banks, leasing companies, funds, and exchanges, financial innovation products and software tools such as sustainable development-linked loans and green digital energy asset valuation models have been developed, quickly guiding capital allocation to the industry. This, in turn, reduces the financing costs for asset management companies and enhances the valuation of assets in the capital market, promoting the green construction, operation, and management of high-level computing infrastructure.

Mou Jun, General Manager of the Investment Banking Department of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Beijing Branch, said: "In the field of green finance, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has always been a pioneer. With the rapid growth in demand for computing power, how to ensure sufficient computing power while achieving green and sustainable development has become an undeniable challenge. To enhance the value of customers' green computing power assets, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has participated in the construction of the green computing power standard system with foresight, with a rich green financial service system to meet the green financial needs of the entire life cycle of the green computing power industry chain. By cooperating with He Ying Data and combining the green computing power index, we innovate sustainable financial products and develop exclusive green financial products to promote the development of green computing power."

Making computing power "green" is the first step. After that, it will also empower more fields for green transformation, allowing more "visions" to become a reality.