Cadence: Energy Efficiency Challenges with AI Data Centres
As the digital landscape evolves, data centres face a critical challenge: managing the energy appetite of AI.
While AI technologies proliferate across industries, they're creating unprecedented power consumption challenges that threaten to derail environmental sustainability efforts.
Tech giants like Google have seen their overall carbon footprints soar as a result.
Despite this, AI is also emerging as a tool to help data centres scale operations, improve energy efficiency and minimise waste.
To understand the potential of AI-driven data centres, we speak with Mark Fenton, Product Engineering Director at leading technology firm Cadence, who highlights the dual nature of AI’s impact.
“Organisations across the globe are rushing to be the biggest and best AI innovator, a goal driven by the transformative power of this technology,” he explains.
“However, this innovation doesn’t come without costs.”
Ongoing AI challenges
The AI boom has triggered significant investments in data infrastructure, but the environmental consequences are substantial.
CO₂ emissions from data centres could double in the near future, exacerbated by the growing power requirements of AI technologies.
Recent reports suggest that emissions from tech leaders like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 662% higher than official figures as of September 2024.
These companies are constructing more data facilities to meet escalating demand, creating additional competition for already strained water and energy resources.
With AI prompting the construction of more facilities to meet demand, Mark explains this is inevitability creating “huge competition over water and energy resources.”
He adds. “Rather than trying to build their way out of the issue, facility leaders must ask themselves whether they are getting the most out of their current infrastructure.
“The extreme power densities and power demands of AI have caused a cataclysmic shift in how data centres must power and cool the technology behind the AI revolution. To put this into perspective, a single ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process compared to a Google search.
“Elsewhere, some reports have suggested that the average data centre uses 300,000 gallons of water a day, which is equal to the water consumption of 100,000 homes.
“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.”
Putting data centre sustainability front and centre
While AI drives energy usage, it also offers tools to address sustainability challenges.
When implemented effectively, AI can optimise data centre operations by improving energy efficiency, reducing cooling requirements and enhancing resource management.
Mark believes the solution lies in adopting AI-driven technologies such as digital twins.
“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," he says
“The good news is that there are ways to develop AI sustainably, such as through digital twin technology.”
Digital twin technology creates a virtual replica of a physical data centre, allowing facility operators to model scenarios and test solutions in a risk-free environment.
This enables them to optimise operations without disrupting day-to-day functionality.
“It also allows data centres to improve power management and assess the effectiveness of heat rejection,” Mark says.
“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.
“What’s more, all of this is done in a risk-free environment, as changes can be tested in the digital world before being implemented in the real one.
“By prioritising data centre efficiency through digital twins, AI's growth doesn't need to burden the environment.
“Rather than trying to build their way out of the issue, facility leaders must ask themselves whether they are getting the most out of their current infrastructure as considering the option of utilising digital twins will foster responsible innovation for the future.”
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