Introduction: "Carbon neutrality" has become a global consensus, around the huge market space for carbon emissions, where is the focus of the ICT industry?
Recently, the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (2022MWC) officially came to an end, as the world's top mobile event, the 2022 Pakistan Exhibition attracted more than 2,000 companies to participate in the event, which has become the largest industry event since the epidemic. During the conference, many manufacturers invariably mentioned green environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction and corporate responsibility, and a new industrial ecology is taking shape.
How to sort out the industrial context behind the emerging green ICT? In the latest (fourth) large-scale interview program "Fangbo Carbon Discussion Room" created by Huawei Digital Energy, Huawei's Vice President of Digital Energy and Chief Marketing Official Liang zhou "Explored" Ba Exhibition, sharing observations and thoughts on "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" through new technologies and new products. (At the request of the copyright owner, please pay attention to the Huawei Digital Energy public account to view the full video.) ）
Green Energy Target Network: The "Balancing Technique" of Bits and Watts
Climate and environmental changes have become a huge challenge to human survival and development, and it is particularly crucial to accelerate the formation of green and low-carbon production and lifestyle and achieve sustainable development of human society. Over the past two years of global commercialization, 5G has developed rapidly in terms of network coverage, terminals, and user scale. By the end of 2021, more than 200 operators around the world have deployed 5G commercial networks, with more than 700 million 5G users and more than 12 million commercial terminals. Undoubtedly, the rapid penetration of the network has continuously reflected the commercial value of 5G, however, the control of energy consumption has become the key to determining whether 5G can continue to be deployed on a large scale.
High energy consumption, high OPEX and high carbon emissions have always been the three major challenges of operators' traditional energy infrastructure, and realizing the transformation and upgrading of the energy system around digitalization and low carbon is the key path for the green development of operators' services. At the same time, in the whole life cycle of network equipment, the carbon emissions generated in the production stage account for only 2%, while the carbon emissions in the use of equipment are as high as 80%-95%, so operators should also focus on the use of network equipment, only in the mode of target network planning, from site to machine room, from deployment to operation to operation and maintenance system planning, in order to fundamentally help operators achieve green transformation and upgrading.
In order to support operators' green development strategies, Huawei puts forward the "MoreBits, LessWatts" viewpoint and helps operators continuously increase network capacity and reduce energy consumption per bit through the "Green Site-Green Network-Green Operation" system solution.
As we all know, wireless sites have become the main focus of energy conservation and emission reduction for operators due to their large number and wide coverage. For indoor computer rooms, the energy efficiency of the site is less than 60%, and more than 40% of the energy is consumed in the heat dissipation of the site. Therefore, on the green site, Huawei adopts the design concept of minimalist architecture, replacing the cabinet with a cabinet and replacing the cabinet with a pole, which greatly reduces CAPEX and OPEX in terms of saving station sites, eliminating engineering transformation, reducing the use of air conditioning in the computer room, and improving the efficiency of solar energy utilization.
At the same time, in order to build an energy-efficient 5G network, Huawei has innovatively launched the PowerStar network-level energy-saving solution. Based on the built-in AI technology, the solution can identify typical energy-saving scenarios of the network through the traffic model established by the big data analysis of the live network, and at the same time, it can predict the future traffic trend based on the traffic model, and realize the refined energy-saving strategy of "one station and one policy" by outputting the corresponding scenario-based energy-saving solutions. It can be said that it is Huawei's digital energy that effectively starts from the top-level planning and design, new construction and expansion, transformation and optimization of all-round "low carbon", helping operators achieve "plus 5G without energy OPEX".
Green networks, on the other hand, have three main characteristics, namely all-light, minimalism, and intelligence. At present, invalid service forwarding is one of the reasons for the high energy consumption of the network. Therefore, operators should increase the construction of optical fiber networks, which is not only in line with the low-carbon trend of "light into copper retreat", based on a fiber optic network, through the FTTRFor Home solution for home users, as well as ftTRFor SME solutions for the enterprise market, OTNP2P and OTNP2MP series of private line solutions, to truly achieve a network of multi-purpose, while meeting the needs of operators to expand home broadband, enterprise private line market expansion needs, to achieve a "one-hop direct" minimalist architecture. Greatly reduce the cost of network construction and energy consumption.
In fact, continuous emission reduction and energy savings are also very critical to operations. Studies have shown that 80% of the time of the entire communication network is idle, and solving the problem of dynamic power management of equipment is crucial to the energy saving and emission reduction of the entire network. Therefore, "green operation" also includes "network operation" and "user operation", the former through artificial intelligence and other technologies to make business needs and equipment operation more matching and intelligent, the energy consumed to the minimum, without affecting network performance and user experience without affecting the network performance and user experience is more energy-saving; the latter through digital means to lead users to a more efficient system migration, such as combined with the user terminal situation, network load, tariff packages and other comprehensive considerations, recommend and guide users to 4G/ 5G migration further reduces energy consumption per bit.
In the author's view, the launch of Huawei's "green site-green network-green operation" system solution provides a set of "methodologies" for operators to implement the green emission reduction strategy, allowing operators to shift from focusing on energy consumption to focusing on energy efficiency while continuously increasing the proportion of green renewable energy used in the network, so as to help operators grasp the main contradictions and optimize the systematic structure, so as to achieve green operations.
At a time when computing power is "popular", the introduction of this concept can be described as opportune.
"Grasp the medicine according to the prescription": the death of breaking the game and energy consumption
At present, as the core productive force of the digital economy, computing power has become a new focus of global strategic competition.
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly issued a document agreeing to start the construction of national computing power hub nodes in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, yangtze river delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Gansu and Ningxia, and planned 10 national data center clusters. At this point, the national integrated big data center system has completed the overall layout design, and the "East Number West Calculation" project has been officially launched. Data centers are both the cornerstone of the ICT industry and a major energy consumer.
In fact, with the proliferation of digital services, the development of data centers in the direction of high speed and high density, and the increasing complexity of architectures have also led to time-consuming, laborious and reliable construction, deployment, operation and maintenance, and management. In this regard, on the basis of modularity, Huawei adheres to the "modular + intelligent" two-wheel drive, and promotes the construction of next-generation data centers to a new level of "minimalism, green, intelligence, and security" through "four major reconstructions", namely, reconstructing architecture, reconstructing temperature control, reconstructing operation and maintenance, and reconstructing power supply.
The first is architectural reconstruction. In the past, many data centers were built first, and then power and cooling modules were introduced, and the construction period took at least 18 months. Through modularization and prefabrication, Huawei has achieved minimalist delivery, greatly shortened the delivery time, and ensured that customer services can be launched quickly. Not only is the speed fast, the module prefabrication can also achieve zero "three wastes" in the construction process, reduce the construction water and construction waste by 80%, the material recovery rate exceeds 80%, and the construction carbon emissions can be reduced by 90%, so as to achieve green construction.
The second is to reconstruct temperature control. The "bull nose" of data center consumption reduction lies in the energy saving and emission reduction of the temperature control system. In terms of cabinet heat dissipation, the drawbacks of traditional air cooling technology are becoming increasingly prominent. Through the digitally powered iCooling technology and the indirect evaporative cooling scheme that maximizes the use of natural cold sources, Huawei can adjust the refrigeration parameters in real time, so that the cooling capacity matches the needs of the service load, thereby further improving the cooling efficiency and reducing the DATA center PUE by 8%-15%.
The third is to reconstruct the operation and maintenance. In the whole life cycle of the data center, long-term smooth operation and maintenance outside of construction is the key to achieving sustainable development. A major feature of Huawei's prefabricated modular data center solution is that it realizes digitally enhanced intelligent O&M, that is, autonomous data center O&M, reducing O&M costs by about 35%, while effectively improving resource utilization by about 20% through refined and intelligent asset capacity management.
The fourth is to reconstruct the power supply. In the past, data center operators had to buy a bunch of power supply "cabinet" equipment, and then integrate the cabinets of different manufacturers together to form a power supply system, commonly known as "saving machines". This power supply model brings problems such as the overall PUE of the data center cannot be guaranteed, maintenance is troublesome, and the footprint is large. Based on advanced concepts and ideas such as "silicon into copper retreat" and "lithium into lead retreat", Huawei's prefabricated modular data center solution "slims down" the power supply and distribution system by using high-density, high-efficiency UPS, and bids farewell to "saving machines" to open up a new era of "brand machines". At the same time, through AI predictive maintenance, the full link of the power supply and distribution system is visible and manageable, which escorts the continuous and stable operation of the data center.
Undoubtedly, with the continuous deepening of digital transformation, the process of smart cities and digital government is also accelerating, and more and more industries in China will digitally transform and join big data clusters. The "14th Five-Year Plan" will be a new round of booming cycles in mainland data centers, "grasping medicine according to the prescription", under the data center template of Huawei's "four major reconstructions", the resilience of the mainland digital economy will also be expected to be further improved.
Sustainability at full connectivity: Huawei's "green" logic
Affected by the epidemic, the digital economy has shown strong resilience, and the global digital economy has also ushered in rapid development. Governments in many countries or regions, such as the European Union, China and South Korea, have announced huge investment plans for the digital economy, and relevant data show that the digital economy will account for more than 50% of GDP in 2022.
The digital economy starts with connectivity. In the author's view, the core of the digital economy is to connect countless traditional industries, giving birth to new scenarios, new models, just as this year's Pakistan Exhibition will position the theme as "connection releases unlimited possibilities", the density of the connection and the accuracy of calculation will determine the strength of the digital economy, but to maintain long-term vitality, the importance of this new dimension of carbon emission reduction is constantly being highlighted.
It is true that the green development of the ICT industry is one of the key steps towards net zero carbon emissions, and while we pay attention to the reduction of emissions in the ICT industry itself, we should also focus on exploring the indirect emission reduction value brought by the ICT industry to other industries.
According to the Global Initiative for Electronic Sustainability (GeSI), by 2030, the ICT industry, by enabling other sectors and industries, expects to benefit from 12.1 billion tons of carbon emissions from green ICT technologies by 2030, which will help reduce global carbon emissions by 20% and 10 times its own emissions.
Just as from Newtonian classical mechanics to Einstein's theory of relativity, people's perception of things is a spiraling process. At this year's Pakistan booth, Huawei took the theme of "Digital Wisdom Forest", and the most significant feature of the entire exhibition area was the ubiquitous green embellishment. "Number" represents the digital world, and "wisdom" represents the intelligent world, implying that ICT is as vibrant as a lush green forest. Green design also represents Huawei's vision of continuously creating value for customers and building a green and beautiful future through continuous innovation.
At present, "carbon neutrality" has become the consensus and mission of all mankind. The social dimension and its wide impact of the goal of "carbon neutrality" have long gone beyond the fields of energy and transportation, and the transformative significance to human society will be no less than the birth of steam engines, electricity and computers. It is foreseeable that with the deepening and development of ICT technology, equipment manufacturers represented by Huawei will continue to practice the concept of "more bits, less watts", make efforts in theory, materials, algorithms, etc., and promote thousands of industries to accelerate the application of green ICT technology, so as to achieve more efficient emission reduction and energy saving. This may also be the "green" logic behind Huawei's practice of sustainable development.
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