On 12 January, Tencent, one of the world\u2019s largest internet companies, responded to the Chinese government\u2019s carbon neutrality goal by announcing it was planning to reach neutrality itself. With China\u2019s climate ambition growing, carbon neutrality is becoming essential for tech giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tencent owns the hugely popular messaging app WeChat and is in the vanguard of China\u2019s net-zero shift, although it is still a late mover compared to similar firms overseas. It has not detailed the scale of its ambitions yet, but it will need to follow up quickly with an action plan and targets, including 100% renewable energy<\/a> use by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is great potential for Chinese tech companies to contribute to decarbonisation. They should make real emissions reductions in their operations and supply chains; use their platforms\u2019 strengths to drive emissions cuts throughout the business world; and apply their technology to help achieve a zero-emissions society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tencent\u2019s announcement<\/a> emphasised several novel energy-saving technologies, including recycling waste heat at its Tianjin data centre, and using liquid cooling technology to bring power usage effectiveness (PUE) down to 1.06 in its data centre in Qingyuan, Guangdong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power usage effectiveness, or PUE, indicates how power-efficient a data centre is. It is expressed as a ratio of total power use versus power used to run IT equipment; the closer to 1, the higher the efficiency.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Data centres have been described as \u201celectricity tigers<\/a>\u201d for their vast power consumption. In 2018, China\u2019s data centres used 160.9 billion kilowatt-hours \u2013 2% of the country\u2019s total, and more than the city of Shanghai in the same year \u2013 according to a report<\/a> by Greenpeace and North China Electric Power University. Assuming China\u2019s energy mix does not change, Chinese data centres\u2019 electricity use will create 163 million tonnes of carbon emissions in 2023, equivalent to a mid-sized nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech giants already use energy-saving methods to minimise their running costs, but improvements in PUE have stalled. Indeed, a global survey<\/a> of 624 IT managers carried out by the Uptime Institute in 2019 revealed that large data centres\u2019 energy efficiency improvements might even be reversing. After improving 30% between 2007 and 2013, annual averages have since hovered around 1.65.<\/p>\n\n\n\n100% renewable energy is key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n