3 Reasons to Build Data Centers with Sustainable Steel
The rapid expansion of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data-driven applications has led to a recent surge in data center construction. As demand for digital storage and processing grows, data centers provide critical infrastructure for meeting current and future technological demands.
For construction industry professionals, the choice of materials to build data storage centers can impact the structure’s overall carbon footprint, production timelines and long-term functionality. While concrete is a strong consideration for certain projects, a primarily steel structure offers distinct advantages due to its lighter weight, efficiency and precision in the construction phase.
Steel offers clear advantages for data center construction and expansion, and the steel you build with makes a difference.
Sustainable Steel Matters
Sustainable steel is produced with low cradle-to-gate carbon emissions, resulting in low-embodied carbon steel. As market demand increases, the need for innovative data center design and construction continues to rise as well, along with the need to deliver lower-embodied carbon material solutions to meet a project’s sustainability requirements.
There are two modern steelmaking methods: blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) and electric arc furnace (EAF). Steel products made with EAF technology are ideal for data center construction due to their efficiency, sustainability and adaptability.
- The EAF steelmaking process uses recycled scrap steel as its primary input, reducing the need for raw material extraction and significantly cutting carbon emissions compared to traditional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking.
- The EAF process allows for precise control over metallurgical properties to create sustainable, low-embodied carbon steel products.
- EAF steel creates a circular process because steel is an infinitely recyclable material, making it a top choice for projects aiming to minimize environmental impact while delivering reliable performance.
Over the past decade, large corporations and governments have adopted more ambitious sustainability and carbon emission reduction targets, which is driving demand for sustainable construction materials and solutions. Low-embodied carbon EAF steel is an ideal solution that supports sustainability goals while meeting the ever-growing demand for cloud-based storage building design.
There are three main reasons why sustainable steel is an ideal construction material for data centers.
1. Efficient Construction for Market Demand
The demand for data centers requires accelerated construction timelines, and steel construction provides the advantages of expedited build time and high precision while maintaining a strong yet lightweight structure for optimized performance.
Speed to Market:
Once construction begins, primarily steel buildings can be erected and enclosed much faster than primarily concrete data centers. Concrete construction demands significant on-site effort, requiring the pouring and setting of each level and component. In contrast, utilizing modular construction and panelization of steel elements can accelerate the process of enclosing a structure. Panelization refers to building components that can be preassembled prior to erection and arrive ready to be bolted or welded into place, streamlining the construction process.
Longevity and Efficiency:
The structural integrity of steel ensures that data center structures can withstand heavy equipment and environmental stresses, providing long-term reliability. Compared to other building materials, steel resists warping, cracking and degradation over time, contributing to its longevity.
The weight of a structure also plays a critical role in determining the ideal location for a new data center, particularly in regions prone to seismic activity. Steel structures are lighter than concrete structures, making them more resistant to earthquakes and reducing the risk of service disruptions after seismic events.
Steel also enables engineers to design adaptable data storage layouts that optimize airflow and cooling systems, both essential for maintaining the operational efficiency of data centers. Efficient cooling reduces energy consumption, significantly lowering operational costs and environmental impact, which helps companies meet sustainability goals while maximizing system performance.
2. Future Expansion for Technological Advancements
Steel offers design flexibility, allowing data centers to be customized and expanded as needs evolve.
Modern steel fabrication methods deliver tight tolerances and exceptional precision, critical for data centers requiring meticulous specifications to accommodate data center racks, cables and cooling equipment. The ability to optimize every square inch of space ensures operational efficiency while supporting scalability as technology evolves.
The modular nature of steel buildings enables seamless expansion to meet growing data demands, and steel structures can be easily modified or scaled up over time, allowing data centers to adapt efficiently to evolving capacity requirements.
Generally, data center server racks and cabinet components have a two-to-three-year shelf life. As technology advances and new server systems become available, those end-of-life steel products customized to old server technology can be replaced and recycled into new EAF steel products, creating a circular economy for data center construction.
3. American Steel Supply Chain Capabilities
Purchasing domestic steel contributes to supply chain assurance, resulting in faster lead times and speed to market. With a strong domestic supply chain, data center construction projects can stay on schedule and adapt to fluctuating economic conditions. Furthermore, domestic purchases lower transportation costs and bolster local industries, contributing to national economic growth.
As corporations and government entities work toward setting sustainability and carbon emissions targets, American steel contributes to lower-embodied carbon emissions due to the reduced transportation of materials compared to sourcing steel from overseas producers.
While sustainable EAF steelmaking accounts for about 70% of steel production in the United States, it makes up only 22% of global steel production. Alternatively, 73% of global steel is manufactured using the more emissions-intensive BF-BOF method (Columbia Business School, “Steel Sector Overview”). As a result, partnering with American steel companies provides a more reliable supply chain and supports sustainability initiatives by reducing reliance on BF-BOF steelmaking processes.
With over 300 facilities across North America, Nucor provides unparalleled supply chain reliability and production commitments to keep your construction projects on schedule. As both the manufacturer and installer of steel products — and the recycler of steel data center components at the end of their lifecycle — Nucor plays a vital role at every stage of the data center supply chain. This integrated approach allows us to be a strong strategic partner, ensuring you have dependable access to the sustainable steel materials you need, even as demand in the data center industry continues to rise.
Nucor Can Provide Steel Products and Capabilities for the Majority of Data Center Construction
Nucor manufactures domestic, sustainable EAF steel, providing a diverse offering of high-quality, low-carbon steel products and capabilities to help our partners meet project deadlines and sustainability goals for their data center projects.
On average, Nucor’s circular EAF steel produces less than one-third of the carbon emissions compared to traditional BF-BOF steelmaking processes for data center products, including:
White space products and installation
- Airflow containment
- Cabinets and racks
- Cages
- Pathway products
- Server network racks and wall units
- Containment and pathway support structures
Core and shell products
- Conventional and pre-engineered buildings
- Decking
- Fasteners
- Grating
- Insulated metal panels for the walls and roof
- Joists and joist girders
- HSS, sprinkler pipe and conduit
- Structural steel products including plate and wide flange
- Fabricated rebar
- Steel foundations and piling
- High-performance and overhead doors
By opting for sustainable EAF steel, data center developers can achieve lower environmental impacts, faster construction timelines and future-proof infrastructure tailored to evolving technology needs.
Nucor’s breadth of domestically manufactured data center steel products and capabilities contribute to the future circular economy of steel. Our team of experts is here to support your next data center project.
Discover how partnering with Nucor can help you leverage the steel supply chain to build your next data center. We’re your collaborative partner from the early design stage to installation.
View Data Center Resources