In an effort to combat Climate Change, Alibaba has promised to make nine green data center patents freely available, including designs for liquid cooling machines and hard drive power regulators.
Alibaba said the nine patents offered are parts of its green data center technologies including the unique “soaking server” cooling system Alibaba Cloud has deployed for its data centers since 2015. This non-mechanical cooling measure leads to energy savings of over 70 per cent compared to traditional mechanical cooling.
Combating Climate Change
Alibaba Group’s VP and chair of sustainability steering committee Chen Long said: “We believe technology innovation is a key driver in transitioning to the low-carbon circular economy of the future. As a pioneer and global technology leader, we are committed to taking broader social responsibility to use technology to level the playing field and to empower the wider social groups, creating long-term value.”
Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure’s Internet Data Centre Division’s General Manager Shanyuan Gao also highlighted that eco-friendly data centers are critical to Alibaba’s sustainable operations. “We employ cutting-edge green technologies in its hyper-scale facilities, of which liquid cooling and renewable electricity storage make a considerable difference in reducing carbon emissions.”
These measures build upon an ecosystem-wide push by Alibaba to combat climate change. Last year, Alibaba pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2030 as it reins in emissions across its operations amid a global push to tackle climate change.
By working with merchants and consumers across its ecosystem, Alibaba said it would slash carbon emissions by 1.5 gigatons across its digital ecosystem by 2035, making it the first major platform operator to set such a target.
Also, this is a part of the Low Carbon Patent Pledge announced today that five new members joined the pledge –UPS, Lenovo, Alibaba, VIAVI Solutions and the Ant Group. The Low Carbon Patent Pledge was launched on Earth Day 2021 by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Microsoft, and Meta (formerly Facebook) to promote low carbon technologies and foster collaborative innovation.
The addition of these companies and the patents they bring to the pledge helps to broaden the coverage of the pledge and to support the adoption and use of low carbon energy sources. Professor Jorge Contreras, academic expert on patent pledges, stated: “The addition of these companies strengthens the Low Carbon Patent Pledge and reflects the reality that all sectors of industry can contribute to the effort to accelerate the transition to low carbon energy sources.”
More than 500 patents have been pledged so far. The list of patents and other details are available at lowcarbonpatentpledge.org.
