Amazon AWS plans to reduce global data center water consumption

CTOnews.com, Nov. 29 (Xinhua)-- Amazon cloud computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to reduce water consumption in global data centers at a time when companies around the world are facing growing water shortages, according to the Wall Street Journal.

On Monday, local time, AWS announced that it would return more water than its direct operation to the community by 2030. The program focuses on data centres in drought-prone areas such as California, South Africa, Indonesia and India, and measures include improving efficiency and recycling water from cooling systems.

CTOnews.com learned that water is an essential resource for AWS operations, mainly for cooling data centers around the world. For the past two years, Amazon has been working on projects to reduce AWS water consumption and increase AWS recycling.

Us media pointed out that data centers consume a lot of water and energy. Spending money to pump water is often cheaper than using electric cooling systems, but more electricity usually means more greenhouse gas emissions.