Document :

ITU-T SG05  (Study Period 2025)  Contribution  686

Title :

Proposed new work item on draft new Recommendation ITU-T L.PCR_DCE "Product category rules for the life cycle assessment of data centre ICT equipment, including AI computing hardware"

Date :

2026-10-07

Source :

Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation (Germany)

AI/Question :

Q9/5

Meeting :

2026-10-20

Observation :

To be verified by TSB

Access :

Restricted to TIES users [ITU-T]

Abstract :

This contribution proposes a new work item in Question [9/5] to develop a Recommendation on product category rules (PCR) for the life cycle assessment of data centre ICT equipment, including AI computing hardware such as servers, accelerators, storage, network equipment and racks. It builds on the OCP Specification for Life Cycle Assessment Studies on Datacenter ICT-Equipment following Product Category Rule Principles, developed by an industry working group within the Open Compute Project (OCP) with Fraunhofer IZM as technical partner, and presented to ITU-T SG5 experts on 17 September 2026. The proposed Recommendation would provide the category-specific rules (product taxonomy, system boundaries, data quality requirements and reporting) needed to produce comparable product carbon footprints for this equipment. It would complement Recommendation ITU-T L.1410 and serve as a reference for the hardware part of assessments under Recommendation ITU-T L.1801. Annex A contains a draft justification (A.1 form) and Annex B a proposed initial table of contents.