How Digital Realty Is Using Transparent AI to Build the World’s Most Sustainable Data Centers

The accelerating demand for digital infrastructure, driven by AI, cloud computing, and global connectivity, has created growing pressure for data centers to operate more efficiently and sustainably. To meet these challenges, Digital Realty, one of the world’s largest data center operators, is partnering with Lucend to bring transparent, operator-empowering intelligence into daily operations.

This collaboration, presented at the Green Data Center Conference by Digital Realty’s Kasper Dessing and Eline ter Hofstede from Lucend, highlights how transparent AI can help data centers improve reliability, reduce energy use, and strengthen long-term sustainability. Their full presentation is available online.

Intelligent Optimization for a More Sustainable Future

Digital Realty operates more than 300 data centers across six continents and is widely recognized for its sustainability leadership. With a goal of achieving carbon neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, the company is adopting new approaches to reduce energy intensity and improve operational performance. Lucend is a central part of this strategy.

By integrating Lucend’s intelligence platform, Digital Realty is able to:

• Improve energy efficiency by analyzing large volumes of real-time data
  
  
• Detect and prevent equipment failures through prescriptive maintenance
  
  
• Reduce water and energy waste across critical systems
  
  
• Support operators with transparent insights that enable confident, real-time decision-making
  
  

These efforts have already produced meaningful results. Digital Realty has achieved 18 GWh of energy savings over the past two and a half years, along with improvements in uptime and operational efficiency.

From Traditional Operations to Intelligent Data Centers

Traditional data center operations rely heavily on static, manual optimizations. These methods often struggle to keep pace with real-time changes in workload demand, weather conditions, and facility behavior. Lucend’s intelligence models, integrated into Digital Realty’s Apollo platform, continuously surface opportunities to optimize energy distribution, system performance, and overall site efficiency.

One of the platform’s strengths is its ability to adapt recommendations to actual conditions. During unexpected heatwaves or rapid shifts in IT load, Lucend provides operators with clear, verifiable insights that help them allocate energy effectively and maintain stable performance.

The result is a more reliable, more efficient, and more sustainable data center environment, with operators in full control of how recommendations are implemented.

A Holistic Approach to Sustainable Operations

Digital Realty and Lucend are demonstrating that intelligent optimization benefits more than energy efficiency alone. Key capabilities include:

Prescriptive maintenance

Intelligence models detect early symptoms, help diagnose root causes, and guide operators in preventing downtime. This improves equipment life and reduces maintenance costs.

Scalable optimization

Insights adapt as facilities expand, helping Digital Realty maintain consistent efficiency across its global portfolio.

Support for sustainable energy strategies

Lucend helps teams integrate renewable energy and adopt innovative approaches including waste heat reuse and ATES (Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage) systems.

A Model for the Future of Data Center Operations

Digital Realty’s commitment to transparent, operator-led optimization is setting a new benchmark for the industry. Its partnership with Lucend shows how AI, when designed to show its work and empower people, can reduce the environmental impact of data centers while improving reliability and operational clarity.

With continuous optimization, predictive insights, and measurable reductions in energy and water usage, the path toward fully sustainable data centers is becoming clearer. This represents the future of digital infrastructure: intelligent, efficient, transparent, and sustainable, powered by Lucend and guided by human expertise.

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