Data Center Optimization: A Review of Current and Experimental Techniques; Greenwashing and the Transparency Gap around Sustainability with Data Centers

As the world becomes increasingly dependent on technology, the environmental impact of data centers has emerged as a pressing concern. The facilities that underpin essential services, from artificial intelligence to social media, require enormous amounts of energy and water to operate. Their growth has ushered in increasing scrutiny of their sustainability, especially as companies rush to promote their green credentials. However, a wide transparency gap exists between corporate sustainability rhetoric and actual effects they fail to communicate, too often cloaked in partial metrics, selective disclosure, and the absence of third-party verification. Meanwhile, technical efforts to optimize data center efficiency are accelerating, attempting to reduce resource consumption through advances in architecture, workload management, and cooling methodologies. With sustainability initiatives proliferating, the lack of standardization and accountability hinders public understanding as well as regulation. This thesis portfolio addresses the sociotechnical simplicity of making sustainability initiatives work and the engineering challenge of optimizing resources in data centers as two sides of the same underlying issue: how to sustainably facilitate the exponential growth of digital infrastructure without contributing to the environmental damage it inflicts.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Technical Advisor: Briana Morrison

STS Advisor: Kent Wayland