From Data to Warmth: Paris Olympics 2024 Setting the Stage for Data Center and Sustainable Synergies to Build a Carbon-Forward Legacy

The 2024 Olympics are around the corner, and Paris is leading the green era by example through restraint, sustainable innovation, and responsible consumption to build a long-term legacy. Organizers of the Paris games have pledged to cut planet heating and carbon emissions in half by implementing behavioral shifts such as no Air Conditioners (Acs) for athletes and plant-based menus. Almost all (95%) of the events will be housed in existing, temporary arenas or in the river Seine with only two new facilities being constructed—the Aquatics Centre and Le Bourget Climbing Venue.

The Olympics will host 15,000 athletes and over 10 million visitors globally. The preceding summer games emitted over 3.5 million tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as a result of transport, food, accommodation, energy consumption, and operational footprint. Paris organizers aim to not exceed 1.5 million tons, in line with wider sustainability goals of the Olympics committee to cut emissions by 50% by 2030. Carbon Market Watch published the Going Green report in April 2024 to assess the Paris Olympics 2024 climate strategy; the findings are summarized below:

• Transport—40% Carbon Emissions: 2,650 Electric Vehicles (EVs) and public transport will cater to the event.
• Construction—30% Carbon Emissions: New buildings will use low carbon materials, recycled plastic seating, heat recovery, and large-scale Photovoltaics (PV) deployments. Innovative building insultation will keep the indoor temperature 6° lower than the outdoor temperature, supplemented with fans, further verified through thermodynamic simulation. Recyclable cardboard bed frames are being used to reduce waste and transport costs.
• Non-Food Purchases—20% Carbon Emissions: An ambiguous term catering to game purchases and eco-designed products/rented products and services.
• Energy—8% Carbon Emissions: The public electricity grid will transition to renewable sources (biofuel, hydrogen, and batteries) and phase out diesel generators, in addition to district heating reuse from data centers. Alibaba announced an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered energy management tool to measure in real time, forecast, minimize energy waste, and reduce electricity consumption in all 35 competition venues.
• Food—1% Carbon Emissions: 80% of the food will be locally sourced and twice as much plant-based food options will be provided. Single-use plastics will be banned with deposit return schemes for food and drink containers.

Cynics have applauded the initiatives on the construction and food fronts, but expressed concern on the impact of international air travel, expressing the need for subsidies/incentives for travelers using alternative means of transport like train and bus. Lastly, transparency is critical to measuring carbon emissions. Creating an independent sustainability team to measure, manage, and monitor will prevent green washing through purchasing carbon offsets. The Olympic games are taking a step toward radically transforming sporting events, climate stewardship, and a new model for greener sporting events.

The Paris Olympics is increasing awareness around low-carbon construction, operation, and heat recycling for the built environment. ABI Research projects the growth of data centers to reach 24,079 in 2030 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12% and projected energy consumption of over 2400TWH. Changing digital habits, increased adoption of cloud-based services, AI/Machine Learning (ML) language models, and cryptocurrency trends are being used by businesses as tools to increase operational profits and reduce operating costs. Today, AI applications and training models consume 10% to 20% additional data center electricity, a critical concern for the energy grid. Data center operators are actively implementing various strategies to power up and stabilize the grid, address environmental concerns, strengthen Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance, reduce their carbon footprints, and promote environmental sustainability.

• Equinox’s PA10: This is part of a data center campus in Paris, an integral part of the city’s infrastructure. Excess heat from hosting Information Technology (IT) equipment and data centers is exported to 1,600 neighboring homes and companies, as well as maintaining the Olympic pool at a constant temperature. In addition, a 430 square meter (m2) greenhouse will grow fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, strawberries and eggplants to provide food.
• Fortum and Microsoft: In 2022, Fortum and Microsoft announced a collaboration on one of the largest waste heat recycling project in Helsinki, Finland. Clean heat from server cooling in Microsoft’s data center will be transferred to homes, services, and business through connected district heating. Fortum will use its existing infrastructure of 900 Kilometers (km) of underground pipes to transfer heat to 250,000 users—reducing 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
• NTT Data Center: NTT will reuse its data center’s waste heat through existing district cooling to heat more than 600 households in Frankfurt, Germany. The project will be commissioned at the end of 2024 by Mainova and demonstrates the economic viability of waste heat powered by two solar-powered heat pumps.
• White Data Center (WDC): Located in Hokkaido Japan, the WDC uses wastewater from the data center cooling process to farm eels and mushrooms, maintaining an ideal 33° Celsius (C) temperature for a profitable and high yield.

Waste heat creates a spectrum of synergic solutions for data centers such as opportunities to heat buildings, swimming pools, or laundries, as well as uses cases for wastewater in vertical farming, greenhouses, and aquaculture to ensure food security. More information on the environmental impact of AI on data centers and case studies can be found in ABI Research’s Building Greener Data Centers to Minimize AI’s Carbon Footprint presentation (PT-3219).