Microsoft Chile announces that its datacenter will use 100% renewable energy from AES Andes
- -The new Chilean datacenter region will support Microsoft's sustainability commitment, including the goal to switch to 100% renewable energy supply in Microsoft data centers by 2025.
SANTIAGO, Chile – April 6, 2022– Microsoft Chile reported that the datacenter announced in December 2020, as part of the Transforma Chile #ReactivaciónDigital plan, will use completely renewable energy thanks to a renewable energy purchase agreement with AES Andes S.A. , which will allow Microsoft customers to reduce their own carbon footprint, while accelerating their digitization. The project includes wind and solar energy.
This announcement is in line with the company's sustainability commitment, which include a goal to switch to 100% renewable energy supply in Microsoft data centers by 2025. It is also part of an ambitious goal to reduce and remove the company’s entire carbon footprint. In fact, by 2030 Microsoft will be carbon negative, and by 2050 Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon that the company has emitted, directly or through electrical consumption, since it was founded in 1975.
“In Chile we are fully committed to achieve Microsoft’s sustainability commitment and our datacenter is an important initiative for that. The project with AES Andes to use wind and solar energy is the first initiative and we are working on the other fronts.” said Sergio Rademacher, General Manager of Microsoft Chile.
“We are very honored and proud to help and accompany Microsoft in meeting its global sustainability goals. This contract is very innovative, involving multiple technologies and was tailor-made to meet Microsoft's requirements. We are all working together to accelerate the future of energy”, said Ricardo Falú, CEO of AES Andes. Falú added that power supply will come from two projects that will begin construction soon: a solar plus battery project located in the Antofagasta region and a wind project located in the Biobío region.
Transforma Chile #ReactivaciónDigital plan is the company's most significant investment in its 30 years in the country. Delivered from datacenters in Chile, the Microsoft cloud will increase remote work and learning communications through services such as Microsoft Teams, improve reliability and scalability of services from Chilean companies and will empower individuals and the public and private sectors to innovate with the latest developer tools.
This datacenter is based on the use of Microsoft Azure, the company's cloud and offers the latest advances in collaboration, productivity and developer tools for companies and individuals, from citizens to professional developers, to innovate, all with advanced data security, privacy and more than 100 compliance certifications. This gives anyone the opportunity to create using cloud services and capabilities spanning computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI, and the Internet of Things (IoT); Microsoft 365, which enables people and businesses to connect, collaborate, work remotely, and learn online with innovative productivity tools; and Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, with which organizations can rapidly create and manage critical business solutions at scale with intelligent business applications.
This region will meet all the standards of the new datacenters that Microsoft has in the world. For example, the recent data center region in Arizona reduced the intensity of using water and replenishing it in a high-stress region. For this, "zero water" concept will be used for cooling for more than half a year, thanks to a method called adiabatic cooling, which uses outside air instead of water. Likewise, in India, the building will support 100% on-site wastewater treatment and reuse for landscaping, washing and makeup of cooling towers.
It is important to notice that the advantage of the Azure datacenter design is redundancy: the information is automatically duplicated and is present on more than one physical disk. This means that, in the event of a natural disaster that deactivates a node, no data is lost since the data is stored in more than one place, presenting redundancy within Chile or even outside Chile.
Today's announcement reinforces Microsoft's commitment to protecting the country's sustainability. The Chilean datacenter region will join Microsoft's global cloud infrastructure, the largest in the world, and will offer local companies a competitive advantage in all of Chile's key industries, such as energy, agriculture, finance, health, travel and manufacturing, by providing faster access to cloud services, as well as the ability to store data within the country. In addition, it will improve the reliability and scalability of services for Chilean companies and empower individuals and the public and private sectors to innovate with the latest developer tools. At the same time, Microsoft has developed a robust training plan for more than 180,000 Chileans and an Advisory Council made up of local leaders to create inclusive opportunities to succeed in the digital economy.