Latest news with #DigitalRealty
Forbes
5 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
AI, Water And The Future Of Business
The following post has been lightly edited. Artificial intelligence is transforming the global economy — unlocking new efficiencies, accelerating innovation and reshaping industries. However, behind every AI breakthrough lies a hidden cost: water. Data centers are essential to powering the digital economy and enabling AI-driven innovation. As their role expands, so does their need for reliable power and water to maintain optimal performance — particularly for cooling high-performance computing systems. As AI adoption accelerates, so does its power and water footprint. By 2030, the world's data centers are projected to use more power than the entirety of India, the most populous country, and just as much water as Americans drink annually. This makes efficient water resource management not just an environmental issue but a business imperative. Water scarcity is already disrupting supply chains, increasing operational costs and threatening business continuity. But here's the opportunity: AI can also be the key to solving the very challenges it creates. As the backbone of AI-powered innovation, data centers play a critical role in enabling industries to thrive in today's digital world. From powering health care diagnostics to supporting advanced manufacturing systems, data centers are integral to modern business operations. Cooling systems depend on water to maintain optimal temperatures for high-performance computing, making smarter water management essential for operational efficiency. At Ecolab, we're proving that water-smart business is smart business. In 2024 alone, our technologies helped customers conserve more than 226 billion gallons of water — enough to meet the drinking needs of 781 million people — while delivering $9.1 billion in cumulative value. Our AI-powered ECOLAB3D™ intelligence platform uses predictive analytics and real-time data to optimize water use, reduce energy consumption and improve operational resilience across more than 40 industries. From food and beverage to manufacturing and health care, we're helping companies turn water risk into competitive advantage. Nowhere is this transformation more urgent — or more promising — than in data centers. In partnership with Digital Realty, the leading global provider of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions that are cloud- and carrier-neutral, we piloted an AI-driven water conservation program across 35 U.S. facilities. The results demonstrated as much as a 15% reduction in water use, 126 million gallons of potable water saved annually, extended equipment life and reduced energy costs. Positive business outcomes shared with our customers reinforce that water is no longer just a utility — it's a strategic asset, and managing it wisely is now a marker of operational excellence, investor confidence and long-term value creation. At Ecolab, we've spent more than a century helping businesses do more with less. By combining our legacy with cutting-edge AI, we're helping partners thrive in a resource-constrained world, where aligning environmental stewardship with business performance unlocks both new growth and financial savings. AI is not just a disruptor, it's also a catalyst. The growing demand for digital technologies provides a unique opportunity to leverage AI to drive efficiency and innovation in circular water management, helping to improve operational processes, drive business growth and conserve natural resources. By embedding AI intelligence into water systems, Ecolab is helping businesses reduce, and reuse water at scale. This approach is the key to building a future where business growth and resource conservation go hand in hand.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Digital Realty is upgrading its data centers for AI — and trying to stay green
This article is part of "Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business. Digital Realty, a data center operator, is scaling up its infrastructure to keep up with AI's growth. But the tricky part is to do so in an environmentally friendly way. The International Energy Agency found that in 2024, data centers accounted for 1.5% of global electricity use. By 2030, that number could nearly double, reaching levels just above Japan's current annual energy consumption. In addition, AI infrastructure is cooled with enormous amounts of water. A report from the University of Tulsa found that a single facility can use up to 5 million gallons per day, enough to supply thousands of homes. With governments and companies pouring billions into AI infrastructure, those resource demands are only expected to grow. Through close collaboration between its sustainability, engineering, and design teams, Digital Realty, which operates more than 300 data centers worldwide, is working to reduce carbon emissions. That means sourcing more renewable energy, upgrading cooling systems, and rethinking where — and how — new sites are built from the ground up. To understand how Digital Realty is preparing for that future, Business Insider spoke with Aaron Binkley, vice president of sustainability, and Shea McKeon, global head of design and engineering, about the company's sustainability strategy. In a roundtable conversation, Binkley and McKeon shared how their teams are working together to cut emissions, balance business demands with sustainability goals, and stay ahead of AI trends in the data center world. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider: How do your roles and teams at Digital Realty contribute to the company's overall decarbonization strategy? Aaron Binkley: My role is global. I oversee sustainability efforts across the company, including work around renewables, decarbonization, development and construction, operations of in-service data centers, and collaboration on green finance, clean energy, energy performance, water, and more. A big part of my job is acting as a convener, bringing people together to ensure we're working collaboratively and surfacing the best ideas. Shea McKeon: I sit in the design, engineering, and construction department, which oversees all new developments and major renovation projects around the world. We're responsible for integrating sustainability into our new builds and working with operations and energy management to bring existing facilities up to the latest standards. Digital Realty has ambitious targets to cut direct and indirect emissions per square foot by 60% and supply chain emissions by 24% — each by 2030. How are your teams collaborating to hit those goals? Binkley: We think about how we build, power, and operate sustainable data centers. That starts with understanding emissions across the data center lifecycle. Design and construction impact embodied carbon, or the total amount of emissions associated with the data center lifecycle, from metal extraction to construction, all the way to equipment disposal. Operationally, it's all about electricity use. So we work closely with our energy procurement and strategy teams to decarbonize our electricity supply. For Scope 1 emissions, referring to direct emissions from sources owned by our company, we're switching from burning mainly diesel in backup generators to renewable fuels like hydrotreated vegetable oil, a diesel-like fuel which we've deployed across 17% of our operating portfolio. But 98% of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which include the indirect emissions from purchased energy, come from electricity, so that's the big nut we need to crack. We prioritize opportunities based on where we can make the biggest impact, designing efficient facilities and powering them with renewables. McKeon: I'd say on the Scope 3 emissions side, which are indirect emissions from the data center supply chain, that's where my team can really have an impact. We're constantly working with our design and construction partners to make sure we're specifying the right materials to help bring those emissions down. It's always at the forefront of our designs. We also partner with Aaron's team during our annual business reviews with key suppliers. We just wrapped those up recently, and Scope 3 emissions were one of the topics we discussed — how suppliers are performing and what we can do to improve. It's a never-ending, iterative process, but collaboration is key to making progress. AI models are creating a demand for computing power. How are you balancing this growth with your sustainability targets? Binkley: We've seen AI coming. It's front of mind now, and a significant portion of our bookings are AI-related. Even as our portfolio grows, we haven't pulled back on any sustainability commitments. We've made strong progress on sourcing renewables and decarbonization. We plan for that, and as AI pushes greater demand, we adjust our plans: rethink sourcing, get more integrated with acquisitions, and get involved earlier in planning and design. We're even part of early utility conversations when acquiring land, asking for clean energy solutions before we've started moving dirt. We're also using AI internally to improve energy and water efficiency. We developed an in-house program called Apollo AI to optimize building management systems across our portfolio. The platform helps our facility engineers find hidden anomalies like clogged filters and leaky valves and suggests improvements that can help drive energy savings. We also have AI tools focused on water systems, helping us fine-tune cooling performance and water chemistry to reduce waste. We really try to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of the energy and water we consume. McKeon: We're planning for 100% of our future buildings to have the capability to deploy liquid cooling directly to the chip, where coolant is circulated through metal plates attached to graphics processing units to remove heat. For those that don't, our engineering team is building roadmaps so we're ready if customers want to use energy-intensive technologies like generative AI that require high levels of compute power. Our modular design approach helps us learn and adapt quickly. And with liquid cooling, you don't need as much square footage per megawatt anymore. That's going to change how buildings are designed moving forward. What's the biggest challenge in aligning technical engineering demands and sustainability goals? Binkley: Our sustainability standards are part of our building codes, but the maximum amount of emissions that can be reduced in our facilities still varies based on customer usage. Some customers move into the data centers fully and operate at high intensity; others ramp up slowly. Modularity helps us handle those variations. The speed of growth is also a challenge — we need to stay ahead of customer demand, line up renewables, and anticipate equipment needs that take a long time to procure. We're building physical infrastructure, which takes years. You can't just flip a switch. McKeon: We're a multi-tenant facility. We lease out space to our customers, so while we control the infrastructure, the customer ultimately controls how they operate within that space. We can design proactively with energy efficiency in mind, and we encourage best practices like airflow containment and optimal temperature settings. But at the end of the day, we don't dictate how customers use their equipment. That creates a bit of a disconnect. Our engineering team can build in sustainability features, but our operations team has to be reactive depending on how each tenant deploys. Some customers come in and run at high utilization, which is great from an efficiency standpoint. Others move in slowly or use a mix of equipment that can affect how well the facility runs. So there's a line between what we can control and what we can influence. Luckily, our operations team is very sophisticated. They use automation, data, and AI to adapt in real time, dialing in temperature and managing airflow, all to run as efficiently as possible. Looking ahead, how are you evolving your decarbonization strategy over the next few years? Binkley: We're not pulling back on our commitments. We'll stay the course, and perhaps even get more aggressive. Clean energy is harder to source now, but still available. We've been able to secure renewables that offer real value and reduce costs. We're also going deeper into Scope 3 with our supplier engagement program, working with vendors to reduce the carbon footprint of the materials and products we buy. McKeon: I'd echo that. Sustainability is embedded in our design process. It's not just a benchmark — it's part of our culture. Our local teams are empowered to innovate project by project, and our global teams constantly share best practices. What works in France might be relevant in Chicago. It's a contagious, exciting environment to be in. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
21 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
How Digital Realty is upgrading its data centers for AI — and trying to stay green
This article is part of " Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business. Digital Realty, a data center operator, is scaling up its infrastructure to keep up with AI's growth. But the tricky part is to do so in an environmentally friendly way. The International Energy Agency found that in 2024, data centers accounted for 1.5% of global electricity use. By 2030, that number could nearly double, reaching levels just above Japan's current annual energy consumption. In addition, AI infrastructure is cooled with enormous amounts of water. A report from the University of Tulsa found that a single facility can use up to 5 million gallons per day, enough to supply thousands of homes. With governments and companies pouring billions into AI infrastructure, those resource demands are only expected to grow. Through close collaboration between its sustainability, engineering, and design teams, Digital Realty, which operates more than 300 data centers worldwide, is working to reduce carbon emissions. That means sourcing more renewable energy, upgrading cooling systems, and rethinking where — and how — new sites are built from the ground up. To understand how Digital Realty is preparing for that future, Business Insider spoke with Aaron Binkley, vice president of sustainability, and Shea McKeon, global head of design and engineering, about the company's sustainability strategy. In a roundtable conversation, Binkley and McKeon shared how their teams are working together to cut emissions, balance business demands with sustainability goals, and stay ahead of AI trends in the data center world. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider: How do your roles and teams at Digital Realty contribute to the company's overall decarbonization strategy? Aaron Binkley: My role is global. I oversee sustainability efforts across the company, including work around renewables, decarbonization, development and construction, operations of in-service data centers, and collaboration on green finance, clean energy, energy performance, water, and more. A big part of my job is acting as a convener, bringing people together to ensure we're working collaboratively and surfacing the best ideas. Shea McKeon: I sit in the design, engineering, and construction department, which oversees all new developments and major renovation projects around the world. We're responsible for integrating sustainability into our new builds and working with operations and energy management to bring existing facilities up to the latest standards. Digital Realty has ambitious targets to cut direct and indirect emissions per square foot by 60% and supply chain emissions by 24% — each by 2030. How are your teams collaborating to hit those goals? Binkley: We think about how we build, power, and operate sustainable data centers. That starts with understanding emissions across the data center lifecycle. Design and construction impact embodied carbon, or the total amount of emissions associated with the data center lifecycle, from metal extraction to construction, all the way to equipment disposal. Operationally, it's all about electricity use. So we work closely with our energy procurement and strategy teams to decarbonize our electricity supply. For Scope 1 emissions, referring to direct emissions from sources owned by our company, we're switching from burning mainly diesel in backup generators to renewable fuels like hydrotreated vegetable oil, a diesel-like fuel which we've deployed across 17% of our operating portfolio. But 98% of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which include the indirect emissions from purchased energy, come from electricity, so that's the big nut we need to crack. We prioritize opportunities based on where we can make the biggest impact, designing efficient facilities and powering them with renewables. McKeon: I'd say on the Scope 3 emissions side, which are indirect emissions from the data center supply chain, that's where my team can really have an impact. We're constantly working with our design and construction partners to make sure we're specifying the right materials to help bring those emissions down. It's always at the forefront of our designs. We also partner with Aaron's team during our annual business reviews with key suppliers. We just wrapped those up recently, and Scope 3 emissions were one of the topics we discussed — how suppliers are performing and what we can do to improve. It's a never-ending, iterative process, but collaboration is key to making progress. AI models are creating a demand for computing power. How are you balancing this growth with your sustainability targets? Binkley: We've seen AI coming. It's front of mind now, and a significant portion of our bookings are AI-related. Even as our portfolio grows, we haven't pulled back on any sustainability commitments. We've made strong progress on sourcing renewables and decarbonization. We plan for that, and as AI pushes greater demand, we adjust our plans: rethink sourcing, get more integrated with acquisitions, and get involved earlier in planning and design. We're even part of early utility conversations when acquiring land, asking for clean energy solutions before we've started moving dirt. We're also using AI internally to improve energy and water efficiency. We developed an in-house program called Apollo AI to optimize building management systems across our portfolio. The platform helps our facility engineers find hidden anomalies like clogged filters and leaky valves and suggests improvements that can help drive energy savings. We also have AI tools focused on water systems, helping us fine-tune cooling performance and water chemistry to reduce waste. We really try to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of the energy and water we consume. McKeon: We're planning for 100% of our future buildings to have the capability to deploy liquid cooling directly to the chip, where coolant is circulated through metal plates attached to graphics processing units to remove heat. For those that don't, our engineering team is building roadmaps so we're ready if customers want to use energy-intensive technologies like generative AI that require high levels of compute power. Our modular design approach helps us learn and adapt quickly. And with liquid cooling, you don't need as much square footage per megawatt anymore. That's going to change how buildings are designed moving forward. What's the biggest challenge in aligning technical engineering demands and sustainability goals? Binkley: Our sustainability standards are part of our building codes, but the maximum amount of emissions that can be reduced in our facilities still varies based on customer usage. Some customers move into the data centers fully and operate at high intensity; others ramp up slowly. Modularity helps us handle those variations. The speed of growth is also a challenge — we need to stay ahead of customer demand, line up renewables, and anticipate equipment needs that take a long time to procure. We're building physical infrastructure, which takes years. You can't just flip a switch. McKeon: We're a multi-tenant facility. We lease out space to our customers, so while we control the infrastructure, the customer ultimately controls how they operate within that space. We can design proactively with energy efficiency in mind, and we encourage best practices like airflow containment and optimal temperature settings. But at the end of the day, we don't dictate how customers use their equipment. That creates a bit of a disconnect. Our engineering team can build in sustainability features, but our operations team has to be reactive depending on how each tenant deploys. Some customers come in and run at high utilization, which is great from an efficiency standpoint. Others move in slowly or use a mix of equipment that can affect how well the facility runs. So there's a line between what we can control and what we can influence. Luckily, our operations team is very sophisticated. They use automation, data, and AI to adapt in real time, dialing in temperature and managing airflow, all to run as efficiently as possible. Looking ahead, how are you evolving your decarbonization strategy over the next few years? Binkley: We're not pulling back on our commitments. We'll stay the course, and perhaps even get more aggressive. Clean energy is harder to source now, but still available. We've been able to secure renewables that offer real value and reduce costs. We're also going deeper into Scope 3 with our supplier engagement program, working with vendors to reduce the carbon footprint of the materials and products we buy. McKeon: I'd echo that. Sustainability is embedded in our design process. It's not just a benchmark — it's part of our culture. Our local teams are empowered to innovate project by project, and our global teams constantly share best practices. What works in France might be relevant in Chicago. It's a contagious, exciting environment to be in.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
If You Invested $10K In Digital Realty Trust Stock 10 Years Ago, How Much Would You Have Now?
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE:DLR) provides data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions for domestic and international customers across a variety of industry verticals. The company's stock traded at approximately $66.04 per share 10 years ago. If you had invested $10,000, you could have bought roughly 151 shares. Currently, shares trade at $171.52, meaning your investment's value could have grown to $25,972 from stock price appreciation alone. However, Digital Realty also paid dividends during these 10 years. Don't Miss: Invest Where It Hurts — And Help Millions Heal: If there was a new fund backed by Jeff Bezos offering a ? Digital Realty's dividend yield is currently 2.83%. Over the last 10 years, it has paid about $44.20 in dividends per share, which means you could have made $6,693 from dividends alone. Summing up $25,972 and $6,693, we end up with the final value of your investment, which is $32,665. This is how much you could have made if you had invested $10,000 in Digital Realty stock 10 years ago. This means a total return of 226.65%. However, this figure is less than the S&P 500 total return for the same period, which was 235.4%. Digital Realty has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a price target of $172.67 based on the ratings of 26 analysts. The price target implies less than 1% potential upside from the current stock price. Trending: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: . On April 24, the company announced its Q1 2025 earnings, posting FFO of $1.77, beating the consensus estimate of $1.73, while revenues of $1.41 billion came in below the consensus of $1.43 billion, as reported by Benzinga. 'Robust demand across our key product segments drove strong leasing and acceleration in Core FFO per share growth in the first quarter,' said CEO Andy Power. 'Leasing kept pace with our 2024 record, lifting our backlog to a new high of $919 million and enhancing our visibility, while the successful launch of our first U.S. Hyperscale Data Center Fund further bolstered and evolved our funding model.' For the full-year 2025, the company expects core FFO per share in the range of $7.05 to $7.15. Check out this article by Benzinga for 12 analysts' insights on Digital Realty. Given just 1% expected upside potential, growth-focused investors may not find Digital Realty stock attractive. Conversely, the stock can be a good option for income-focused investors, who can benefit from the company's solid dividend yield of 2.83%. Read Next: With Point, you can , which provides access to a pool of short-term loans backed by residential real estate with just a $100 minimum. Image: Shutterstock Send To MSN: 0 This article If You Invested $10K In Digital Realty Trust Stock 10 Years Ago, How Much Would You Have Now? originally appeared on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Digital Realty (DLR) Receives a Buy from Citi
In a report released on May 30, Michael Rollins from Citi maintained a Buy rating on Digital Realty (DLR – Research Report), with a price target of $174.00. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Rollins covers the Communication Services sector, focusing on stocks such as T Mobile US, AT&T, and Charter Communications. According to TipRanks, Rollins has an average return of 12.4% and a 68.06% success rate on recommended stocks. Digital Realty has an analyst consensus of Strong Buy, with a price target consensus of $189.06. The company has a one-year high of $198.00 and a one-year low of $129.95. Currently, Digital Realty has an average volume of 2.26M.
