The explosive growth of data and the demand for public cloud offerings have contributed to several new large data centers being planned or constructed across the globe. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has coerced numerous companies to look for options to ensure business continuity, leading to data centers growing faster than ever.

Cloud computing took center stage, and cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Alibaba were able to make billions of dollars in revenue. In 2020, Microsoft's commercial cloud business surpassed $50 billion in revenue. Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos shared during the company's first-quarter 2021 result announcement that AWS has become a $54 billion annual sales run rate business, growing 32% year over year.

As data centers' physical infrastructure and demand continue to grow, their carbon footprint needs to be smaller. Companies need to identify and implement sustainable practices to ensure that their data centers are energy efficient.