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We have experienced a massive
currently available. Anybody that’s built a data centre in the last two years however is probably very well-placed to take advantage of this AI growth.” He cited a case in Loudon County, Virginia, a hotspot for data centre construction, explaining that there are data centres all over the region that are lying dormant because the energy supplier simply isn’t up to the task of supplying the power required. There is a similar situation occurring in Dublin. “The crazy thing is this, construction costs for a 100-megawatt data centre would be in the regional about $1.5 billion. You would only invest that sort of money if you knew you were going to get the power. Planning permission was granted before the pandemic, however, then halted. “It could be that the utility had to upgrade some of the backend electrical infrastructure, and because of the pandemic, they’ve not been able to do it.” It is early days for AI however, and growing pains are inevitable for a few years until this settles down. The emergence of AI now, while all of the above is in such flux is not ideal. Dormant data centres are not a good look, and the data centre companies will be on the receiving end of criticism for this, even though the pandemic was certainly not their fault. You have to feel for the data centre industry. They’re getting it from every angle: anti-greenwashing legislation,
Liquid cooling technologies are in high demand, but the conversion from traditional air cooling in large data centres takes enormous investment and is highly complex. Holland Barry, SVP and Field CTO of US based data centres provider Centresquare says that “While the evolution to liquid cooling is certainly inevitable, rapid uptake may still be a few years out due to the upfront investment and complexities involved in deploying these solutions in current data centre infrastructure. We’ll see definite growth in this category in 2024 but look for a steeper rise down the road once there is more technology standardisation.” Politics and denial Booth feels with the right direction and impetus at government level there is no reason why this sort of initiative couldn’t go on to heat thousands of new build homes in the future, as has been happening at scale in Scandinavia for some time, but the UK in 2024 is not in a good place right now. Having endured 5 prime ministers in 7 years and another election in a few months’ time, corruption scandals engulfing ministers and MPs on a weekly basis, promoted by a media so obsessed it has no time for sustainability news unless there’s a Cop 28 style conference to distract them. Such chaos and inertia affects long-term strategy, thwarting sustainability ambitions. Throw in an increasingly noisy ‘it’s just weather’ lobby of prominent climate change deniers and the inertia is even more pronounced; such noise affects policy, public perception (it’s all about the clicks and likes after all these days), investment decisions, even research into cleaner solutions. It creates barriers to progress, on global cooperation especially if a climate change denier is reinstated in the White House later this year.
turn-around in mentality, moving from the linear economy model to the circular economy model.
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sustainability reporting pressure, expensive technology upgrades,
begging the National Grid for power and the ongoing noise of NIMBYISM from residents the world over (would YOU want a data centre in your backyard?) Added to that is ongoing reputational damage from all of the above, even prompting a slightly sad, if instructive piece by techerati. com late last year. It was probably well received by weary executives. “Top 5 Tips to Shape Positive PR for the Data Centre Industry” offered advice on how to offer case studies, engaging journalists the right way and presenting a united front. There is a mountain to climb for these guys, and it will get worse before it gets better. Overall however, there are reasons to be cheerful. The combination of rapid technology improvements, investment, a willingness by data centres themselves to improve matters should see a continued upward trajectory for the sector.
Greening of Streaming www.greeningofstreaming.org
Climate EQ www.climate-eq.co.uk
The Flint https://theflint.media
Who’s powering all that AI?
While AI is busy making our lives easier, it comes at a significant cost to the environment, something nobody thinks about while they are busy talking to Alexa or asking ChatGPT to do their homework. John Booth explained that the power required to make our lives that much easier is actually going to be difficult to supply. “A lot of the legacy facilities are in panic mode because the energy requirements for AI are three or four times what’s
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May 2024 Volume 46 No.2
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