Steel and concrete, the traditional materials used in data center construction, are significant carbon emitters, but in an effort to achieve sustainability, Microsoft is testing fire-resistant cross-laminated timber (CLT) in its first wood-based data centers near a northern Virginia suburb. .
The company says the project is part of a “concerted task” to achieve its ambitious climate goals: to become carbon neutral by 2030 and offset all emissions since its inception by 2050.
Although Microsoft has made progress toward this goal, indirect emissions from data centers – from material extraction, manufacturing and transportation – increased by 30.9% over three years.
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The use of CLT, alongside concrete and steel, in the hybrid design is expected to reduce embodied carbon emissions by 35% compared to traditional steel construction and 65% compared to standard concrete.
Microsoft’s decarbonization efforts extend beyond this project, supported by its $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund, which has so far invested $761 million in scalable environmental projects.
Microsoft is working with green building materials companies, including Swedish company Stegra, which is developing a hydrogen-based steelmaking process that emits water vapor instead of carbon, reducing emissions by up to 95%. Microsoft has also partnered with Boston Metal, which uses renewable electricity to produce steel while generating oxygen instead of carbon dioxide.
To reduce reliance on traditional cement, Microsoft has partnered with companies like CarbonCure, which injects CO₂ into concrete, and Prometheus Materials, which creates carbon-free cement using microalgae. Microsoft plans to test Prometheus cement in its Virginia data centers to test its durability.
“Microsoft is in a unique position simply because it is very large,” says Thomas Hooker of Thornton Tomasetti, a structural engineering firm working with Microsoft. “They can almost act as market players and, to some extent, push some of these technologies into more widespread use just because it’s a high priority for Microsoft.”
