Everybody in the Pool

E132: The Data Center’s Climate Redemption Arc with Lucend

April 23, 2026·29 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Data centers don't exactly have a reputation for being climate heroes… but what if they could be? This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Jasper de Vries, co-founder and CEO of Lucend, to talk about the surprisingly wild world of data center optimization — and why the industry has been leaving billions of dollars and millions of megawatt hours on the table.In this conversation, Jasper explains how Lucend’s platform uses machine learning and sensor data to make data centers dramatically more efficient. He also lays out a vision for the industry’s future; one where data centers generate their own renewable power, store it in batteries, and feed flexibility back to the grid on demand.We talk about:Why data centers are sitting on a goldmine of untapped efficiency, and why they haven't captured it until nowHow Lucend uses 280 billion sensor readings to open up the "black box" of data center operations, saving customers an average of 25% on energy and 30% on waterWhy it’s so hard to make even the smallest changes in how a data center operatesHow "transparent AI" builds operator trust by showing every step of the recommendation processThe water vs. energy trade-off in cooling, and why it's more complicated than headlines suggestWhy Scope 3 emissions from hardware are the dirty secret behind Big Tech's broken climate pledgesThe vision for data centers as flexible grid assets, and what’s needed to get them thereLinks:Lucend: https://www.getlucend.com/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/2EsDhwQC2zSubscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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