Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measures the efficiency of a data center. PUE is a recognized standard that was developed by The Green Grid. A PUE of 1 would imply that all power is used on the servers alone, with nothing wasted and no additional energy consumed for cooling.
Tailpipe applies a PUE of 1.22 to cloud data center energy, based on an IDC study of cloud data center efficiency (2023, commissioned by AWS). Cloud providers publish lower global averages for their own estates (AWS 1.15, Azure 1.16), but these are self-reported, per-facility figures are not published for most regions, and providers measure PUE with differing methodologies. Tailpipe therefore applies the higher 1.22 figure rather than the providers’ own averages. This placement is corroborated by the independent 2024 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data center energy report, which places hyperscale facilities between 1.15 and 1.35, against a national average of 1.4.
Tailpipe’s separate AI methodology applies provider-specific PUE figures to AI model usage. AI workloads run on the provider’s own managed infrastructure, where the provider’s published fleet average is the most specific figure available, so the two methodologies use different PUE values by design.