These spikes threaten cascade power outages and affect homes and businesses that feed the same grid network. Last summer, Virginia’s utility providers had to suddenly surge in power, leading to an oversupply that put grid infrastructure at risk after clusters of facilities were switched to backup generators as a safety precaution.
When abundant power was given priority, operators also became areas with significant water constraints. According to researchers at LBNL, the US hyperscale and colocation site consumed 55 billion liters of water in 2023. Indirect consumption related to energy use is significantly higher at 800 million liters per year, with an equivalent annual water usage of nearly 2mn. Our house.
In 2023, Microsoft said 42% of water came from “water-stressed areas,” while Meta said about 16% of water use was derived from similar areas over the same period. Google said last year that nearly 30% of the water came from the basin. Amazon will not disclose it That diagram.
Data centers in drought-prone states such as Arizona and Texas have sparked concern among locals, but Georgia residents complain that the development of the state’s meta has damaged water wells, boosted local government water costs, and led to visible shortages. Distributed water.
Some believe this endless race for this constant computing power is misguided.
Sasha Lucciioni, AI, and Climate Lead at Open-Source Startup Hugging Face said alternative technologies for training AI models, such as distillation and the use of small scale models, have become popular, allowing developers to build powerful models in just a few cases. cost.
“It’s like a mass hallucination where everyone is at the same wavelength that needs more data centers without actually questioning why.” She said.
cooling
Increased chip density has another undesirable effect. heat. Approximately two-fifths of the energy used by AI data centers comes from cooling chips and equipment. Consultant McKinsey.
Early data centers running crowd workloads deployed industrial grade air conditioning units similar to those used in offices to cool servers. However, as the chips began to draw out more power, it became more difficult to keep them within a safe operating range of 30-40C, as data centers need more advanced cooling methods to avoid malfunctions. This challenge has led to significant investments in cutting-edge innovation.
The operators had the installation of pipes filled with cold water in the server room, which moved heat from the equipment. This water is directed towards a large cooling tower that uses evaporation to lower facility temperatures to a safe range. However, this approach leads to water loss, with one tower running through about 19,000 liters Per minute.
Microsoft and others employ closed loop systems that rely on chillers, which are actually refrigerators, to cool the water. This process is more efficient and wasteless Evaporation option.
