Ireland, Germany, Singapore, China, the Netherlands and some US states have all introduced restrictions on the construction of new data centers in recent years, reports the Financial Times on Wednesday.
This is due to the explosion in data center power consumption driven by the use of generative AI, which is now raising environmental concerns.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Annual Power Consumption Report 2023 shows that in 2022, global data centers consumed 460 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity, or 2% of global data demand. ‘electricity.
The demon of generative AI
“Cloud providers and businesses are moving towards generative AI at full speed,” recently assured analyst Vladimir Galabov of Omdia. “In 2023, we will have to double the capacity of data centers to do AI.” He then estimated that infrastructure spending for AI would exceed $30 billion in 2023.
By 2026, this consumption should reach between 620 and 1,500 TWh. Energy consumption is expected to grow fastest in the United States, which is home to about 33% of the world’s 8,000 data centers, Europe, which has 16%, and China, which is home to 10%.
Based on 2022 figures, Morgan Stanley, a leading Wall Street investment bank, has estimated that by 2027, generative AI will account for more than three-quarters of global power demand. of data.
Ireland, world champion of data centers
Deloitte estimates that global data center investments will exceed $500 billion by 2027.
Currently, Ireland, with its low corporate tax rate, is home to the largest number of data centers, with 82 data centers. Fourteen are under construction and 40 more have been approved for future construction.
Data centers therefore account for a fifth of Ireland’s national electricity consumption, which is expected to reach 32% of the country’s electricity demand by 2026.
States take to the front
In response to this situation, Irish authorities last year implemented an emergency program to temporarily cut off electricity supplies during the winter months.
More recently, some data center operators, including EdgeConneX and Equinix, have been refused permits for new projects in Dublin.
The US state of Virginia and Germany have also recently introduced regulations to limit permits for data centers in residential areas or to require renewable energy to be fed into the grid and waste heat is reused.
GAFAM between solar and nuclear
Additionally, PJM, the largest power grid operator in the United States, announced last December that it would spend $5 billion to expand the transmission network in Virginia. For what ? Because data centers have made the current power grid unstable.
Barclays, the British banking giant, warned that “governments have yet to consider the impact of increased internet use on the network” and that “regulations of such severity and frequency similar are expected elsewhere in the years to come.
In response, large hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently invested in wind and solar power.
But that shouldn’t be enough. Microsoft announced plans to build a nuclear “small modular reactor” that could cover up to 35% of the energy needs of its data center in Virginia, and signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, a private company American nuclear fusion research institute.
“Going green is easier said than done”
Amazon is working on replacing diesel in its data centers. Starting with Ireland and Sweden, the company plans to convert the backup generators in all its European data centers to biofuel made from waste oils as soon as possible.
“Going green is easier said than done,” Barclays said, “and data center operators will need to play a more active role in the future, including by producing more renewable energy and taking energy efficiency measures.
Source: “ZDNet Korea”