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Reducing carbon emissions is crucial to curbing the effects of climate change, but usually gas-powered vehicles and manufacturers are the most conspicuous culprits. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is currently responsible for between 2 and 4% of the global carbon footprint, which is on par with aviation emissions.

ICT emissions are expected only to grow, a byproduct of how everyday appliances like watches and cars keep getting "smarter." ICT is predicted to be responsible for 20% of global carbon emissions by 2030.

Cloud computing is one of the key contributors to ICT's carbon footprint, producing two types of emissions: operational, which arises from power generation; and embodied, which comes from the semiconductor fabrications used to manufacture a cloud server's hardware components.

Many cloud providers like Microsoft and Google have set aggressive deadlines to greatly reduce cloud emissions. With this in mind, a team of researchers from CMU identified a new design approach for computer server Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), which enable a cloud to significantly reduce carbon emissions while meeting its performance goals.

The team, led by electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student Jaylen Wang, created a systematic way to design and deploy GreenSKUs, which are carbon-efficient server designs that minimize a cloud's overall emissions while promoting its efficiency. Their findings were published as part of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 51st Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA).

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