ARK DATA CENTRES
As Pip highlights , the data centre industry must seek new solutions and change its mindset to meet ambitious sustainability targets .
“ We need to get past the belief that intermittent renewables and batteries alone will meet our energy needs . If we rely solely on that , we ’ ll end up mining huge amounts of materials to create several times the generation capacity we actually need .”
Innovation and sustainability key to tackling the AI challenge As the data centre industry grapples with improving its environmental performance , a new challenge looms : the rapid growth of AI and its computational demands . This emerging technology promises to revolutionise countless aspects of our lives , but it also presents significant challenges for data centre sustainability .
Pip acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding AI ’ s impact on data centre operations : “ The truth of the matter is , we don ’ t know yet because we haven ’ t yet got the perfect chip . We haven ’ t yet got agreement on how people want those chips to be cooled or deployed or run , it depends on who you buy it from and who you talk to .”
This uncertainty stems from the fact that AI – and particularly large language models – require immense computational power . As Pip explains : “ There is still an awful lot of hype about AI and the benefits it can bring and how much energy it ’ s going to use and what its water impacts are going to be .”
70 November 2024