Data Centres: Balancing AI Innovation with Sustainability
The unstoppable advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is fuelling a significant rise in energy consumption, with data centres at the forefront of this surge. This escalating demand is also raising alarms over carbon emissions.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centres were responsible for consuming 1-1.5% of the globe's electricity in 2022, a figure that came before the peak AI surge. The agency also noted an increase in global electricity demand by 2.2% in 2023, with a warning that this could potentially double by 2026.
This alarming trend could see carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from data centres doubling between 2022 and 2030, putting pressure on the industry to embrace AI sustainably to avoid compromising net zero targets and global energy security.
Battling to lower data centre emissions
In the UK, the national conversation around data centres is increasingly focused on balancing innovation with sustainability. In a significant move, the UK government recognised data centres as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) in September 2024, underlining their essential role in the digital economy.
This designation is seen as a boon for the UK's economic landscape, especially with AWS planning to inject £8bn (US$10.5bn) into the nation's data centres. However, this expansion poses potential sustainability risks.
This week (September 2024), it was reported that emissions from the in-house data centres of tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple could be 7.62 times (662%) higher than what's been officially reported.
These companies have been battling to curb their total emissions, with Google reporting a 13% increase early in 2024 due to its AI-driven data centres, as highlighted by a recent analysis.
“The race for AI dominance is heating up, but at what cost? The increase in emissions is largely down to legacy data centres unable to cope with the power demands of AI,” Elio van Puyvelde, Chief Information Officer at Nscale said.
“And while big tech invests heavily in renewables, the sheer scale of the AI boom threatens to overwhelm those efforts.”
Morgan Stanley projects that data centre carbon emissions could triple by 2030 due to AI, contributing to 2.5 billion tonnes of CO₂. As the sector navigates AI advancements, it faces the dual challenge of managing energy consumption both efficiently and ethically.
Elio advocates for the development of sustainable data centres, emphasising the importance of location and efficiency in mitigating long-term environmental impacts.
“Ensuring data centres are built where there is a stable supply of renewable power is one thing, but the industry must focus on maximising efficiency too,” he says. “The reality is AI workloads are so often poorly optimised, wasting energy use and delivering poor returns. Accelerating AI hardware and software optimisation is one of the best routes to managing AI energy consumption levels.
“Companies must optimise and fine-tune AI models as well as invest in energy efficient AI accelerator hardware.”
Embracing sustainable innovation
With data centre investments on the rise, entities within this sphere must adapt their compute infrastructure to meet AI's demands while maintaining a commitment to sustainability.
“Organisations across the globe are rushing to be the biggest and best AI innovator, a goal driven by the transformative power of this technology,” comments Dave King, Senior Principal Product Engineer at Cadence.
“The extreme power densities and power demand have caused a cataclysmic shift in how data centres must power and cool the technology behind the AI revolution. At a time when many organisations are embarking on sustainability projects to meet incoming legislation, balancing environmental responsibilities with being a progressive AI champion is proving to be a difficult challenge.”
“As data centre industry leaders face the daunting task of weighing AI’s capabilities against its environmental toll, the challenge becomes not just technological but ethical.”
Nonetheless, there are strategies for reducing data centres' carbon footprints without compromising their capacity or future growth.
Dave highlights the role of digital twin technology in achieving these goals, describing it as a digital counterpart that mirrors a physical object or system.
“These virtual replicas of the physical data centre empower facility managers to reduce the carbon footprint of AI by enabling them to address not only current but future stranded capacity,” he says. “It also allows data centres to improve power management and assess the effectiveness of heat rejection. The benefits continue as they can even be used to identify the least amount of energy needed to cool a facility without impacting its operational effectiveness.
“By prioritising data centre efficiency through digital twins, AI's growth doesn't need to burden the environment. Rather, this shift fosters responsible innovation and will reduce the need for endless data centre construction.”
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