The Future of Data Centres Afternoon – Featuring ASHRAE UK Data Centre competition presentation and open DC Committee event

Data centres are critical to the global digital economy but also major contributors to rising energy demand, carbon emissions, and water use. As artificial intelligence and cloud computing scale up, the sustainability of these facilities has become a defining challenge for the net-zero transition.
Join us on Friday 21st November 2025 from 5pm at Somerville College to hear from early-career researchers and experts across disciplines, exploring how technical innovation and policy design can converge to deliver net-zero data infrastructure.
The programme opens with a presentation from the winners of the 2025 European ASHRAE Net-Zero Data Centre Competition, RISE-UP UK, which includes Oxford DPhil students alongside peers from Exeter, Loughborough and London South Bank universities. The team will explain how their design combined advanced cooling systems, on-site renewables, and adaptive controls; and showcase how interdisciplinary collaboration can transform energy-intensive infrastructure into climate-resilient systems.
A panel discussion will follow, featuring leading academics, industry experts and policy specialists examining the broader environmental and regulatory context of data centre decarbonisation.
If interested in attending please sign up using the link: https://zero.ox.ac.uk/events/the-future-of-data-centres/