- Alibaba Group pledges to make nine energy efficiency patents
technology available for free for the first time
- Alibaba Cloud aims to have
its global data centers running entirely on clean energy by
2030
HANGZHOU, China, April 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Alibaba Group
Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA and HKEX: 9988, "Alibaba" or "Alibaba
Group") has joined Low Carbon Patent Pledge (LCPP), an
international platform that encourages sharing patents for low
carbon technologies, to accelerate adoption of green technology and
foster collaborative innovation by making nine key patents for
green data center technology available for free to external
parties. In keeping with its support for green initiatives,
Alibaba Cloud, the digital
technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group also aims to
have its global data centers running entirely on clean energy by
2030, starting with upgrades to five of its hyper-scale data
centers in China.
Joining the coalition of various pledgors from the international
society, the initiative marks the first time that Alibaba Group has
pledged to offer critical intellectual property broadly available
on sustainability, which reinforces its long-standing
commitment to achieving a low-carbon and sustainable future for the
society through forging broader cooperation.The nine patents
offered are parts of Alibaba's 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% compared to traditional mechanical cooling
.
"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. We are excited to join the pledge as a way to
encourage a collective approach to build a sustainable and
inclusive future for the society and environment through open
collaboration, joint innovations and mutual inspiration." said
Dr. Chen Long, Vice President of
Alibaba Group and Chair of Alibaba's Sustainability Steering
Committee.
Low Carbon Pledge Patent was launched on Earth Day 2021 by
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Microsoft, and Meta with the
mission of promoting low carbon technologies and fostering
collaborative innovation. Professor Jorge Contreras, academic expert on patent
pledges, notes: "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."
Greening Data Centers with Technology
As an infrastructure provider for a green economy, Alibaba Cloud is also committing to have its
global data centers running entirely on clean energy by 2030 by
employing cutting-edge green technologies in these facilities.
Shanyuan Gao, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure's
Internet Data Center Division, said: "Eco-friendly data centers are
critical to Alibaba's sustainable operations. We employs
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. For instance,
in our Hangzhou data center,
server clusters are submerged in specialized liquid coolant, which
quickly chills the IT hardware."
Alibaba Cloud's Zhangbei data
center employs the same method, which contributed to it earning a
Green Power Consumption Certificate from the Beijing Electric Power
Exchange Center in 2021, recognizing the facility as the first in
China to use heat-pump technology.
As Alibaba Cloud builds a secure and
resilient global infrastructure network, it believes that the
advanced technology housed within the data centers will become the
new standard with liquid cooling being promoted throughout
China and in more countries in the
future.
While clean energy solves many issues, its use brings its own
set of challenges. The energy supply from solar and wind sources
can be fickle, delivering full power when the weather is fair and
windy but failing to produce when conditions change. To address
that, Alibaba Cloud is assessing
carbon management tools to help it better take advantage of energy
trading schemes while also planning a more stable energy supply.
Alibaba Cloud is also exploring
other frontier technologies, like pumping water to store energy, a
common way to conserve renewable energy until it is needed.
To help cut electricity use further, Alibaba launched its first
proprietary chip, the Yitian 710. The Yitian 710 can accommodate up
to 60 billion transistors in each chip, translating into a 50%
higher energy efficiency ratio compared with other models. This
will make transitioning to clean energy easier as it reduces demand
on unpredictable solar and wind energy sources.
About Alibaba Group
Alibaba Group's mission is to make it easy to do business
anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of
commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet, work and live
at Alibaba, and that it will be a good company that lasts for 102
years.
About Alibaba Cloud
Established in 2009, Alibaba
Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and
intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite
of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic
computing, database, storage, network virtualization services,
large-scale computing, security, management and application
services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT
services. Alibaba Cloud is
China's leading provider of public
cloud services by revenue in 2019, including PaaS and IaaS
services, according to IDC. Alibaba Group is the world's third
leading and Asia Pacific's leading
IaaS provider by revenue in 2020 in U.S. dollars, according to
Gartner's April 2021 report.
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