COMPASS Talks
The Computing Platforms Seminar Series (COMPASS) is focused on talks by industry and academia around the general topic of computing platforms.
Designing a Lower-Carbon Cloud Across the Stack
Abstract:
General-purpose cloud computing has become essential to modern digital infrastructure, yet it significantly contributes to global carbon emissions. This talk quantifies the cloud's carbon footprint, highlighting key aspects of both operational and embodied emissions. After briefly surveying strategies for operational emission reductions, we focus on embodied carbon—an increasingly critical challenge associated with hardware manufacturing and lifecycle management. We examine the sustainability potential and complexities of extending server lifetimes, emphasizing opportunities for partial reuse of server components and adopting denser, more efficient storage media. Our experience from the last five years shows that addressing these challenges effectively requires cross-stack co-design and collaboration.
Bio:
Daniel is a Principal Researcher at Azure Systems Research and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Washington. His research focuses on improving the efficiency, sustainability, and reliability of cloud platforms. Before joining Microsoft, Daniel taught Distributed Systems at Carnegie Mellon University for five semesters. He is the recipient of an IEEE Micro Top Picks 2025 award, an ACM ASPLOS 2023 distinguished paper award, USENIX OSDI 2023 best paper award, 2021 ACM SOSP Best Paper Award, the 2018 Mark Stehlik Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, and best paper awards at IFIP Performance and ACM WiSec.