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CIO Essentials: Hyperscalers - more 'hype' than 'scale'?

Headline claims make impressive reading, but the reality is much more nuanced

A few years ago I went to a country that will remain nameless. I was impressed with the obvious local investment and big claims being made about recycling and other eco-friendly efforts when I arrived - but just a few miles away, waterways were clogged and a pile of burning refuse belched out black smoke.

It's not a perfect analogy for the cloud industry, but the themes are the comparable.

As Penny Horwood writes this week, "At first glance, [cloud service providers] seem very keen to broadcast their sustainability credentials, particularly their efficiency," but "the bigger picture is much more complicated."

It should surprise nobody that environmental matters are complex, but this is perhaps the first time research has challenged the received wisdom that cloud hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are the most climate-friendly way of doing business.

The theory goes that hyperscale datacentres gain massive economies of scale, easily outdoing anything on-premise - although most studies into the matter, like this one, are funded by cloud vendors.

Without wanting to regurgitate the excellent investigate efforts in the article, it turns out that while headline claims make for impressive stats, the reality might be closer to on-prem efficiency than cloud providers would like.

This is a problem we see again and again when it comes to climate. It's easy to generate soundbites and statistics, to make sweeping promises and commit to grand targets, but when the rubber meets the road the actual movements tend to be small, underfunded and lack ambition.

That's not always the case. While Amazon has committed to a safe goal of net zero by 2040, Microsoft is going for a much riskier play of carbon negativity by 2030 and removal of historic emissions by 2050. That's the type of effort we need, and what we continue to drive for on Computing.

Over the coming weeks we'll be publishing head-to-head analysis covering each of the big three cloud vendors' eco efforts. Last year Microsoft was a market leader while Amazon was in a (very) distant last place, but 2023 is a whole new year.

Staying abreast of suppliers' climate impact is important for any company hoping to meet emissions targets, especially as Scope 3 tracking and reporting becomes ever more important. As we move into the new year, it's time to look at your cloud or datacentre provider and ask yourself: where does the hype end and the efficiency begin?

CIO Essentials: Hyperscalers - more 'hype' than 'scale'?

Headline claims make impressive reading, but the reality is much more nuanced

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