“Overheating”

By Scott Hamilton

I have written before about how the current pace of computing system growth is unsustainable. We are heading towards a point of no return where it is no longer an “if” our infrastructure fails, it is a “when.” A recent report released by thecooldown.com slams Google for the “disastrous side effect of new technology.” The problem occurs because of the increased power demand in United States based data centers.

National Public Radio (NPR) broke the story based on Google’s latest sustainability report, which revealed that the tech giant’s heat-trapping gas pollution rose by 48 percent since 2019. So exactly what does this mean? In the simplest form it means that the power required by Google to operate, and cool their computing equipment increased by 48 percent in the last five years. They are not the only ones requiring more power; Microsoft saw an increase of 29 percent in the same time period.

Why the sudden need for more power going to these data centers? There are two reasons – the first is the high compute power demands of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the second is the vast increase in the power consumption of standard computing components. Just for a simple example, in 2000 the average home computer required 250-300 Watts of power, in 2005 that doubled to 500-600 Watts and seemed to stabilize there for a few years. By 2015 just the graphics card alone required 500 Watts, driving the computer to require just over 1,000 Watts. The high end gaming systems of today are usually around 2,000 watts.

If we take the above power consumption growth curve and apply it to Google, we see Google’s data centers today utilize 23 terawatt hours of power a year. To put in perspective, New York City only utilizes 4 terawatt hours a year. This means Google alone is consuming the power of eight cities the size of New York. In 2020 Google utilized approximately 11 terawatts. If the trend continues, and it looks like it will, by 2030 Google will be consuming eight percent of the total power in the US. The issues do not stop there; the bigger problem is that most of these Google data centers still run off of coal and natural gas fired power plants, adding stress to an already weak power infrastructure.

While I do not necessarily agree that our level of pollution has any significant impact on the climate, I still agree that we need to conserve our natural resources as much as possible. I have covered some of the inherent risks of AI in past articles, including the risks of AI taking jobs, controlling communications and even the ultimate risk of taking over government. However, the biggest risk with AI is the vast power consumption increases.

If we begin to look closely at the overall power consumption in the US we are doing things every day to increase our demand for reliable power. Government mandates for electric cars and trucks will double the necessary power, and as we add in the demands for AI data centers, suddenly we begin to see exponential growth in power demand. We are already struggling to generate enough power today and I, for one, do not see that changing in the future.

While the NPR report focused primarily around the climate impact of such exponential growth, I firmly believe that the real problem is going to be maintaining the required infrastructure and producing the required power to continue the growth curve. Not to mention our reliance on such technology would bring us to a complete standstill in the event of a major natural disaster.

We can already begin to see the fall-out that occurs when power is lost across a region from the impacts of hurricane Helene in the last week. We have a major portion of the country without power, cell phones, or internet connectivity. For over a week, these people have not had access to basic supplies; with no internet, it means stores cannot process bank transactions, so it is cash or nothing. While the NPR news article calls us to take action by voting for pro-environmental candidates, I feel that it is much more important to vote for pro-infrastructure improvement candidates. As we begin to make a shift towards more and more digital based business transactions, maintaining the basic infrastructure is way more important than the climate impact.

What would you do without access to power, internet and your bank account for a month? Until next week stay safe and learn something new.

Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@**********rd.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.