According to the International Energy Agency, a wave of investment in data centers is expected to accelerate even more in the coming years, mainly due to the growing digitalization and use generative artificial intelligence – CNBC reports. It is this prospect that has caused concerns about the increase in demand for electricity – as well as the often overlooked but extremely important impact of artificial intelligence on the environment.
Data centers consume energy
Data centers, which consume more and more energy, are a key part of the infrastructure behind today’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications. Giampiero Frisio, president of electrification at Swiss multinational ABB, said the engineering group’s data center business has enjoyed significant growth in recent years and the segment will grow by more than 24% in 2024.
“I think the best course of action now is to step up energy efficiency. This is the best way because the technology already exists, such as HiPerGuard medium-voltage UPS units,” Frisio said in a video interview with CNBC. HiPerGuard UPS is ABB’s medium-voltage power supply that the company says can provide continuous power to large facilities. “The second is to move on liquid coolingthere is no doubt about it,” Frisio added. “Later, we’re talking about five to 10 years from now, it will be modular nuclear system“.
Big Tech is going nuclear
American technology giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon have concluded nuclear energy deals worth billions of dollars in recent months. In this way, they seek to provide additional energy power online to train and run the massive generative artificial intelligence models behind today’s applications.
The increase in demand for generative AI has coincided with a push to find more efficient cooling solutions in data centers, in particular liquid cooling, a process in which water is used to lower the temperature of servers and other electronic equipment. French energy equipment maker Schneider Electric recently completed an $850 million deal to acquire a controlling stake in Motivair, a US company specializing in liquid cooling for high-performance computing.
Will the development of artificial intelligence help with decarbonization?
Some tech players suggest that the development of artificial intelligence could help decarbonize data centers. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that since “we won’t meet climate goals anyway,” investing in artificial intelligence could be crucial to solving some of our biggest environmental challenges. However, his claims were met with criticism.
The AI boom affects the costs of supporting the technology
“I think every great technology we discover has a summer and a winter – but we don’t pay attention to it until it arrives,” said Raj Hazra, CEO of Quantinuum, the world’s largest integrated quantum computing company. “That’s my way of describing what’s going on with generative AI, the infrastructure needed to support it (and) the massive data centers that need to be built,” he explained to CNBC.
Hazra said optimism surrounding the boom in generative artificial intelligence is already impacting the costs of operating the technology. “While AI is great, it has two challenges. One is, is it sustainable from a resource perspective? The second is, is she responsible?” – Hazra wondered. “The reason I bring up this context is because quanta are central to both of them.” Quantum computing refers to a field of computer science that uses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve extremely complex problems.
