The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence is making something increasingly visible that we often tend to overlook: the digital ecosystem has a very tangible physical foundation. AI models, cloud services and public digital applications run inside buildings filled with processors, storage systems, power supplies, networks, cooling loops and backup power systems. Data centers consume electricity and water, tie up critical equipment and create long-term technological dependencies.
This is why the debate about new data centers cannot be limited to how many megawatts will be installed or how many GPUs they will host. The critical questions are how these facilities will be designed, who will be able to maintain and expand them, which energy sources will power them, and how much water they will require. For a country such as Greece, the answer should be clear: open designs, open hardware and software, renewable energy sources and circular water management.
From Open Source Software to the Open Data Center
Openness should not stop at the operating system or the application layer. It should extend across the entire infrastructure. This means publicly available specifications for racks, power delivery, cooling, interconnections, telemetry, energy storage and management interfaces. It also means open source management software and documented interfaces that allow equipment from different manufacturers and service providers to work together without artificial barriers.
This approach reduces vendor lock-in. If a data center depends on a proprietary energy management platform, patented cooling technologies or closed interfaces, switching suppliers can become extremely expensive. With open specifications, infrastructure becomes repairable, extensible and auditable. Lifecycle costs can be reduced, while smaller European and Greek companies gain opportunities to provide equipment, maintenance services and technical improvements.
The Open Compute Project demonstrates that this model can now be applied from the server level all the way to the physical data center facility itself. Open architectures for racks, direct-current power distribution, energy storage, telemetry and management create the foundations for genuinely interoperable data centers.
Energy Must Be Part of the Design
High-density data centers can no longer be treated as just another large electricity consumer requesting a grid connection. Their energy supply must be designed as an integral part of the infrastructure from day one.
Greece has significant solar and wind potential, but it also experiences periods during which renewable electricity production has to be curtailed because the power system cannot absorb it. A modern data center can combine solar or wind generation, battery storage, flexible demand and, where technically and economically justified, renewable hydrogen for longer-duration storage or backup generation.
Direct-current distribution is particularly interesting in this context. Batteries store DC electricity, photovoltaic systems generate DC electricity, and electronic equipment ultimately operates on DC power as well. Reducing repeated conversions between alternating and direct current can limit energy losses and simplify the integration of local generation and storage.
The objective is not complete energy isolation. It is resilience, operational flexibility and the maximum possible use of clean energy without shifting the entire cost of strengthening the electricity grid onto society.
Water Is Not an Unlimited Resource
Cooling is the second major environmental challenge. In regions facing increasing water scarcity, the use of drinking water for cooling large-scale digital infrastructure should be treated as a solution of last resort.
Modern liquid-cooling technologies make it possible to operate closed-loop systems in which the same water circulates continuously between servers and heat exchangers. Where additional water is required, priority should be given to reclaimed or treated non-potable water and, where feasible, collected rainwater.
The principle should be straightforward: minimise withdrawals of new water, maximise recirculation and publicly measure the water footprint. Data center performance should be assessed not only through electricity consumption but also through water usage effectiveness.
Open Telemetry Means Verifiable Sustainability
The European Union is already moving in this direction, requiring significant data centers to report information on energy performance, water use, waste-heat utilisation and the share of renewable energy in their consumption.
For publicly owned or publicly funded infrastructure, we can go one step further. Telemetry on energy consumption, the origin of electricity, operating temperatures, water use and cooling performance can be published as open data. Sustainability then ceases to be a marketing claim and becomes a measurable and independently verifiable outcome.
A Greek Opportunity for Open Infrastructure
Greece could develop a pilot data center in the 0.5 to 2 MW range with open specifications at every layer: OCP-compatible racks and equipment, an open microgrid, open source energy management software, closed-loop cooling, reclaimed water and publicly accessible telemetry.
The most important legacy of such a project would not be its computing capacity alone. It would be the reproducible design. If public money is used to fund the infrastructure, its designs, software, specifications and technical documentation should be released under open licences, allowing universities, research centres, public authorities and companies to reuse and improve them.
Digital sovereignty does not mean producing everything ourselves. It means having the ability to understand, control, repair, modify and replace the critical systems on which we depend. Open and sustainable data centers are precisely this kind of infrastructure.
Sources:
Open Compute Project Foundation, Delivering an Open Data Center Ecosystem for AI: The OCP presents an open data center ecosystem that now goes beyond servers and racks to include physical facilities, direct-current power distribution, energy storage, telemetry and open interfaces, creating the foundations for interoperable infrastructure that is not dependent on a single vendor.
https://www.opencompute.org/blog/delivering-an-open-data-center-ecosystem-for-ai,
European Union, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 on data center sustainability: The Regulation establishes indicators covering energy efficiency, water usage effectiveness, energy reuse and the share of renewable energy, providing a common European framework for measurable and comparable data center sustainability. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2024/1364/oj?locale=eng,
Microsoft, Sustainable by design: Next-generation datacenters consume zero water for cooling: Microsoft’s closed-loop cooling approach demonstrates how high-density liquid cooling can continuously recirculate the same water, significantly reducing the need for new water intake and avoiding water evaporation during cooling operations. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/12/09/sustainable-by-design-next-generation-datacenters-consume-zero-water-for-cooling/.