Data center design companies are starting to consider the historical weather information outmoded and beginning to use projected future temperatures, says Flucker. “Rather than thinking my extreme is 35 degrees, they’re doing projections saying maybe it’s more like 37 or 38 degrees,” she says. “But of course, that’s only as good as how well we can predict the future.”
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers has developed operating temperaturefor data processing equipment, such as the servers integral to data centers. The limits suggest air pumped through data centers be supplied at no more than 27 degrees Celsius—though there are allowable ranges beyond that. “The world doesn’t end,” says Flucker. “All this equipment is warrantied up to 32 degrees Celsius.
Companies are testing some unusual ways to tackle these challenges: Between 2018 and 2020 Microsoft ran, which sunk a data center 117 feet below the sea offshore Scotland to insulate it from temperature fluctuations, among other things. Harris says that building data centers in ever more northern climates could be one way to avoid the heat—by trying to outrun it—but this comes with its own problems.