CBET-EPSRC: TECAN - Telemetry-Enabled Carbon Aware Networking

Addressing climate change is of existential importance. Although there are many contributing factors, energy production and consumption has one of the most direct impacts on the environment. A significant portion of this can be attributed to computer networks, with some reports estimating that they consume 1.5x the energy of all data centres. However, in contrast to other large scale compute infrastructure, accounting for the carbon emissions of the network is extremely hard. A traffic flow can cross multiple administrative domains in different regions of the world, be processed in devices powered by different energy sources, and share the energy consumption with tens of thousands of other traffic flows.

The goal of this project is to quantify, and subsequently reduce, the carbon emissions of computer networks. Concretely, it proposes a comprehensive research agenda that will: (1) identify metrics that cover the end-to-end environmental cost of data transmission; (2) leverage programmable network elements to collect and report the metrics by developing novel carbon-intelligent network telemetry solutions; and (3) design novel, carbon-aware network routing algorithms that utilize the measurements. Overall, the project will enable accurate accounting of computer networks' carbon emissions and develop novel routing algorithms to minimize the carbon emissions of the Internet, combating climate change.

If successful, the project will help us meet the targets established by the UK government, which has committed to achieving 'net-zero' by 2050. Specifically, it will help communication providers to minimize their carbon emissions; enable policy makers to reliably check that companies meet government's net-zero goals; and allow consumers to choose communications and ICT providers based on their sustainability claims.