Posted 2/25/2024, 4:44:00 PM
Tech Giants' AI Ambitions Drive Data Center Expansion, Raising Sustainability Challenges
- Tech giants building more data centers to power AI, causing massive increases in energy use and carbon emissions
- Using software to shift data center operations to places with excess renewable energy on the grid helps cut emissions
- Growth in power-hungry AI models like large language models far outpaces clean energy production
- Companies like Google pioneer "load shifting" to match data center energy use with renewable energy production
- Reaching 100% carbon-free operations remains challenging despite some companies like Google achieving over 90% at some data centers