Sustainable Computing: AWS Continues Keeping Its Promise

Not much was made about Amazon’s recent $350 million deal to purchase Annapurna, an Israeli-based low-energy chip maker.  Most of the commentary centered around potential cost savings for AWS by reducing its power usage across such a massive global compute platform.  And this certainly has to be one motivator.  But this move, combined with massive investment in wind farms, also seems to signal Amazon’s continued commitment to honor its promise to power its entire global footprint with 100% renewable energy.

Is AWS being altruistic and responsible?  Maybe, but this is also a shrewd competitive move.  Not far in the distant future this will likely be a big competitive advantage for AWS.  Public pressure on companies will likely increase to be mindful of their carbon footprint, and AWS is the only major IaaS provider that has made this kind of aggressive promise.  And as AWS lowers operating costs, history suggests they will pass these savings on to customers as they continue to put price pressure on competitors.  So they win, we win and the planet wins.

Concerned about your company’s carbon footprint? Then its probably time now to start migrating to AWS.  Oh, and while you’re at it you can save money, move to a new level of security and dramatically increase your company’s speed and agility.