Investigation of claim - only 3 percent of energy is used for useful computing

Claim: 97 % of energy is wasted

Claim

Less than 3% of the energy consumed in a datacenter is used for active, useful computing.

Incorrect

Data used for this analysis are unknown. The primary source is from 2008, so we can assume that the used data is definitely outdated and the claim not correct (anymore).

The primary source is not available anymore:
Rocky Mountain Institute of Technology, β€œDesigning Radically Efficient and Profitable Datacenters” August 7, 2008

Secondary Sources:


Current data

Power Usage Effectiveness

Average PUE of large data centers in 2022: 1.55

Hyperscale cloud data centers have an average PUE value of around 1.1 - 1.2.
Source: Cloud Carbon Footprint Methodology

β†’ Cooling systems, lighting, UPS and other non-IT equipment consume around 10-35 % of the total energy in modern data centers.

Server Utilization

Summary

Average server utilization in modern cloud data centers seems to be at around 50 %. Utilization of servers in on-premise data centers is typically much lower.

Optimal server utilization level?

How much energy can be considered as wasted, if the server utilization is "only" 50 %? You should ensure the server utilization has sufficient headroom for spikes. 100 % can't be the goal.
So what can be considered as an optimal server utilization level?

Example Dropbox:

At Dropbox, we aim to reach 85% capacity, a sweet spot for usage that’s efficient yet still gives us extra capacity to handle power spikes.

Zombie Servers

Systems that have no activity in the last six months are called comatose or zombies.

25% of all physical servers and 30% of all virtual servers are comatose (Koomey & Anthesis, 2017).

Relation between Inefficiencies and GHG Emissions

According to Intel estimates, infrastructure and software inefficiency count for over 50% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the data center.

β€” Intel