Metrics for Data Center Embodied Carbon

The information and computing technology (ICT) industry accounts for a significant and growing portion of total global carbon emissions: composing 2.1% to 3.9% of global emissions in 2021 with emissions growing annually [7]. To address these emissions, Microsoft [16] and Google [14] have each pledged to reach carbon neutrality or net-zero carbon by 2030, and Amazon [17] has pledged to achieve the same by 2040. The push towards sustainable data centers has led to a growing emphasis on incorporating carbon as part of optimization metrics across the computing stack including systems [11], architecture [8, 4, 5, 6], and software [18, 10].