Newton Fund (Invitation Only) Next Generation Green Data Centres for Environmental and Business Sustainability

Rapid urbanisation in Malaysia and globally is driving socio-economic change and infrastructure development that is
resulting in high levels of current and projected demand for digital connectivity and data handling. Data centers are key, but
globally they are large consumers of energy with substantial emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants that
degrade urban air quality. Cooling represents more than half of the energy consumption. To be located in the highly
urbanised city of Petaling Jaya, the Next Generation Green Data Centre Living Lab proposed for this industrially driven
collaboration will innovatively integrate novel Malaysian and UK green energy and cooling technologies to reduce energy
consumption by 50%, improving energy security and reducing emissions. The project will create a replicable and
commercially viable approach to sustainable computing for reconciling urbanisation with environmental risk and climate
change globally. In parallel the collaboration will lead to significant social impact through improved urban air quality,
enabling sustainable connectivity, and the creation of a green technology commercialisation hub in Malaysia.

This industrially driven collaboration across leading industrial and academic partners will impact on society and economy
through the integration of novel Malaysian and UK green energy and cooling technologies to reduce energy consumption
by 50%, improving energy security and reducing emissions. This collaboration will also impact society through improved
urban air quality, enabling sustainable connectivity, and the creation of a green technology commercialisation hub in
Malaysia. We will realise the potential knowledge based, economic and societal impacts of our research through:
application and exploitation; and communication and engagement activities. The significant impacts on the economy and
energy security are based on the size and growth of the world data centre (DC) industry. The International Data
Corporation reports that global data centre capacity will grow from 1.58 to 1.94 billion square feet between 2013 and 2018,
with about 600,000 data centres alone will be built globally from now until 2017 of which 450,000 are expected within the
new growth area of Asia Pacific and with 8,600 in Malaysia.
This project will help to enabling sustainable computing growth, while simultaneously supporting manufacturing and
enhanced job opportunities. These impacts will be achieved by a reduction of 50% in data centre energy consumption
through a novel fluid submersion cooling process, and the provision of zero-emissions backup power generators utilising
innovative Dearman cryogenic engine technology. The societal and economic impacts will also help to reconcile
urbanisation and growth with climate change and sustainability and will contribute significantly to the country's social well
being. The project will also have a knowledge based impact through capacity building
The outputs from the project will include a commercialisable sustainable computing model for Next Generation Green Data
Center Farms that can be replicated for deployment anywhere in the world. This innovative model developed will be
embodied in a new green DC product range which will subsequently be commercially disseminated through productisation,
marketing and sales activites. We will be supported through the expert (and independently funded) Business Development
teams at the academic partners institutions. The objectives and outputs of our project will also be marketed through our
diverse business networks of more than 300 industry and government partners.
We propose to outreach to the public, policy makers and industry to complement the conventional routes for dissemination
to the scientific community. The consortium intends to disseminate the project results to a targeted audience of digital
centre operators and builders globally in the form of a 'Next Generation Green DC Farm Framework and Deployment
Model' guide.