China plans to reduce its data center PUE by 8% in the next three years, China idcquan reported. This target is one of the highlights for the 12^th five-year plan for Industrial Energy Conservation announced by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China at the end of February.

According to the plan, China aims to reduce industrial energy consumption by 21% compared with that of the 11^th five-year plan. With respect to data center industries, the target is to reduce its PUE by 8% in the next three years.

The 12^th five-year-plan period is expected to see the emergence of more large data centers along with the introduction of new-generation mobile and internet technologies. Rapid data business growth will be brought about by new business applications such as video and image, according to the plan.

Along with increasing integration of data centers, more and more racks and other relevant equipment will be installed, resulting in dramatic increase of energy consumption, which ultimately will pose great challenges to energy conservation for communication industries.

To achieve the target 8% PUE decrease, China will pursue a vigorous policy of integrating "informatization" and industrialization, and promoting green information and communication technologies. China will focus on making reasonable usage of natural cooling resources, introducing equipment and facilities with high density, good performance and low energy overhead, while taking full advantage of new technologies, such as virtualization and cloud computing. Moreover, China will configure servers, air conditioners and other management software in a more comprehensive manner for greener data centers.