July 10, 2024 1:50 AM
Amazon meets 100% renewable energy goal 7 years early
Amazon announced that we’ve met our renewable energy goal to match 100% of the electricity consumed across Amazon’s global operations—including our data centers, corporate buildings, grocery stores and fulfillment centers—with renewable energy, which we originally set to accomplish by 2030.
To get there, we’ve become the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world for four years running, and have invested billions of dollars in more than 500 solar and wind projects globally, which together are capable of generating enough energy to power the equivalent of 7.6 million U.S. homes.
Achieving this goal is an important milestone in our efforts to meet our Climate Pledge commitment of net-zero carbon by 2040. Looking ahead, we remain as committed as ever to getting there, and we’re continue to evolve our approach to incorporate additional forms of carbon-free energy, including nuclear energy, alongside our continued solar and wind investments.
“Reaching our renewable energy goal is an incredible achievement, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done to get here, seven years early. We also know that this is just a moment in time, and our work to decarbonize our operations will not always be the same each year—we’ll continue to make progress, while also constantly evolving on our path to 2040,” said Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst. “Our teams will remain ambitious, and continue to do what is right for our business, our customers and the planet. That’s why we’ll continue investing in solar and wind projects, while also supporting other forms of carbon-free energy, like nuclear, battery storage, and emerging technologies that can help power our operations for decades to come.”
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July 3, 2024 11:39 AM
New research validates how Amazon is taking steps to run our AWS data centers more efficiently
We’re constantly reevaluating how our data centers operate and determining ways to help them run on less energy and be more efficient. And as the world scales our use of AI, it's important to also minimize its environmental footprint.
A new study by Accenture shows that an effective way to do that is by moving IT workloads from on-premises infrastructure to AWS data centers around the globe. The research estimates AWS’s infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more efficient than on-premises, and when workloads are optimized on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 99%. This type of impact is possible by AWS optimizing our data center design, investing in purpose-built chips, and innovating with new cooling technologies.
For example, we’ve taken steps to design our data centers to use natural air flow to lower server temperatures, which can heat up while in use. This allows us to use less air conditioning when possible.
We’ve also designed our AWS machine learning chips, which power millions of workloads daily, to be more energy efficient. For example, AWS’s Graviton processor delivers high performance with high levels of energy efficiency. Graviton4 provides up to 30% better computing performance, 50% more cores, and 75% more memory bandwidth than current-generation Graviton3 processors, delivering the best price performance and energy efficiency for a broad range of workloads running on Amazon EC2.
We’re also keeping technologies in use longer by increasing the lifespan of our servers from five to six years.
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June 25, 2024 7:00 AM
Five ways Amazon is preparing for the energy demands of the future
As our society relies on technology more than ever, from consumer electronics to large-scale infrastructure in both public and private sectors, global energy demands are continuing to grow. At Amazon, we’re working to meet the future energy demands of our customers and our business while remaining committed to our Climate Pledge to become net-zero carbon by 2040. We know the path forward is changing, and our work to decarbonize our operations won’t be linear, so we’re constantly experimenting, learning, and evolving.
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