“We are definitely seeing an appetite from Indian customers to think about not only factors like cost when it comes to cloud, but also sustainability,” said Jenna Leiner, Global Head of Environment Social Governance (ESG) and External Engagement at AWS. The cloud computing giant in collaboration with Accenture recently released a report suggesting how moving to cloud computing can substantially reduce carbon emissions. At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is gaining momentum, growing concerns about the environmental impact of the massive computing power required to run these systems have been a bone of contention. AWS, one of the largest cloud providers, has been working with organisations worldwide to help reduce the carbon footprint of their AI and other digital workloads. In an interview with indianexpress.com, Leiner discussed how AWS is working towards making cloud computing more sustainable, especially in the Indian market. During the conversation, the AWS executive highlighted that Indian companies could reduce the carbon footprint of their workloads by up to 98 per cent by simply moving to AWS cloud infrastructure from their on-premise data centre. She asserted that this can go up to 99 per cent when these workloads are optimised on AWS with the help of AWS’s custom silicon chips. Indian organisations on cloud adoption For the uninitiated, on-premise is installed software that runs on a company’s own hardware infrastructure and is hosted locally. On the other hand, cloud software is stored and managed on the provider’s server which is accessed through a web browser or other digital interface. When asked about the aptitude of Indian businesses in terms of migrating from on-premise data centres to cloud, Leiner revealed, “There is a tremendous opportunity for Indian organisations to reduce their IT-related carbon footprint by simply migrating to AWS and then also working with us to optimise AWS to make an even bigger impact.” The estimates, as claimed by Leiner, are an outcome of a recent report based on observations from AI workloads running on the AWS cloud versus those running on the on-premise environments in India. Although reductions seem like a giant leap, the ESG head explained that the actual results may vary depending on factors such as the specific setup of on-premise centres being moved from, and how extensively these workloads have been optimised on AWS. In 2020, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a rapid surge in the popularity of cloud computing. And, this was mainly due to the extent of data security and the flexibility it offers. Regardless of the merits of going cloud, a sizable number of organisations are still hesitant to move to the cloud. When asked what advice she would give to these organisations, Leiner emphasised the need to act quickly considering the urgency in addressing climate change. She added that it is challenging for individual companies to match the efficiency that AWS can achieve at scale. “It is hard to maintain the same velocity as AWS when it comes to making sure that your on-premise environment is as highly utilised, reducing that idle capacity,” explained Leiner. “It is hard to do and it is hard to accommodate unpredictable demand spikes and future demand growth,” she added. AWS is eyeing to reach net zero carbon emissions in its operations by 2040. To work towards this mighty goal, the company is focusing on three areas – improving energy efficiency, transitioning to renewable energy, and significantly reducing embodied carbon in its infrastructure. Impact on Indian companies When it comes to India, Leiner informed that AWS has invested in 50 wind and solar projects with over 1.1 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity. While admitting that this is just the beginning, she praised the policies of the Indian government that are paving the way for faster adoption of renewable energy by corporations. Asked about Indian companies that are seeing benefits from these technologies, Leiner spoke about IBS Software, a travel industry SaaS provider, which reported a 40 per cent reduction in carbon emissions per instance hour after adopting AWS Graviton processors. Similarly, the digital payments platform Paytm saw up to a 70 per cent estimated decrease in carbon emissions per transaction. Leiner acknowledged the growing concerns about the massive energy requirements of large-scale AI systems, saying that it is still early days for AI. However, she emphasised that many AWS customers are actively working to balance the possibilities of AI with meaningful sustainability objectives. She also pointed to Amazon’s latest sustainability report, which showed a 3 per cent reduction in absolute carbon emissions and a 13 per cent decrease in carbon intensity, indicating that the company is successfully decoupling emissions growth from business growth. Advice for Indian companies Asked what advice she would give to Indian companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint via cloud adoption, Leiner listed three key pieces of advice. “Firstly, assess current IT environments and identify opportunities to migrate on-premises workloads to the cloud, even if it is just a ‘lift and shift’ to start. Secondly, work continuously on optimising cloud workloads to reduce waste, leveraging AWS tools and expertise. And, lastly, explore innovative ways to use cloud technologies like AI and machine learning to advance sustainability goals within the company and industry,” she said.
