Data centres globally consumed 220-330 TWh in 2021 (California uses around 278 TWh/year). How much more will they consume if AI takes off, given AI queries consume an order of magnitude more energy, and there are over 5bn internet users worldwide? The first step is to make a decent evidence-based prediction, but the U.S. and the EU are only expected to enforce reporting requirements next year, explains Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy … [Read more...]
Simple superconducting diode can dramatically cut energy use in transistors, data centres
Some estimates say data centres could be consuming up to 20% of all power globally in ten years. That’s largely because the billions of transistors have to be cooled. Elizabeth Thomson at MIT describes breakthrough research that has made a superconducting diode that’s twice as efficient as the standard, therefore generating and wasting far less heat. What’s surprising is that some straightforward physics of materials was utilised, in contrast to … [Read more...]
The nexus between data centres, efficiency and renewables: a role model for the energy transition
How much will electricity consumption from data centres grow from today’s 1% of the global total? 40-fold by 2030? Or a more manageable 5-fold? Or less? Sean Ratka and Francisco Boshell at IRENA try to answer this question by looking at the innovations being made by the tech industry to drive down power costs and emissions. The evidence is promising. Though data centre computing output jumped 6- fold between 2010 and 2018, their energy … [Read more...]
