Susanna Kass, InfraPrime’s Co-Founder, joined Cloud & 5G LIVE to discuss how transformative technologies can mitigate data centres’ environmental impact
Sustainability advocate and Data Centre Advisor for the UN SDG Action Campaign Programme, Susanna Kass, Sustainability Advisor and Co-Founder of InfraPrime graced Cloud & 5G LIVE’s virtual stage in October
With impressive credentials that demonstrate her considerate influence across the sector as well as her extensive background attesting to more than three decades of experience in the data centre industry, Kass is a renowned cloud sustainability executive who uses her strength in speaking to encourage the data centre industries — as well as others across the technology sector and beyond — to take a greener approach to the future.
At Cloud & 5G LIVE, Kass also guest hosted Cloud and Clean Energy Tech Innovation and Sustainability Impact for the Future of Data Centre where Kass — also a Energy Fellow at Stanford University — fielded questions to Brian Marrs, Senior Director, Energy & Carbon Removal at Microsoft on data centre energy and carbon negative strategies, achievements in carbon removal and the future of data centre sustainability design.
Highlighting the impact of the industry on climate change and pressing global challenges — whether that be rising fuel costs, resource scarcity, AI — data centre and sustainability champion Kass highlighted how new technologies have risen to attention in our world. She gave insight into how AI can be harnessed to accelerate the delivery of climate positive impact results for a carbon free economy. With Kass, the audience had an eye-opening experience in learning how upcoming and cutting-edge data centre facilities of the future can create more sustainable technological advancements.
“AI is absolutely an important technology,” she said. “We need to use it, we need to respect it. It is an amazing powerful technology that can accelerate and disrupt.” She called for the audience to join her on the onward journey, acknowledging that a sustainable future is something that can only be achieved collectively together.
“So the two key things that we need to look out for in the future of data centres are impact and continuous innovation,” she also declared. “No one can actually do it all alone in deciding the future of data centre.”
And on that, she also highlighted how, in her more than three decades working in the data centre industry, encouraging parties to collaborate and connect is the only way that the industry can thrive while also being as sustainable as possible, exceeding what was previously deemed doable and debunking outdated myths that data centres are big polluters.
To do this, Kass stresses, a diverse workforce is required too, stating: “It’s really about having an inclusive mindset and we can have diverse thinking as we look at impact and also designing new innovation.
“We are genuinely all better together, which is why we’re gathering today at this event. It actually starts with the individual. An individual actually has a tremendous amount of power in terms of helping to drive the carbon-free economy.”
