The Data Bill: Considering datacentres' hunger for power

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Source is ComputerWeekly.com

As the Data Bill continues its legislative journey through the House of Lords, it’s important to also consider where all that data “lives”, including what it costs to house it.

Datacentres, until relatively recently, were a bit of a niche interest, known little outside the technology world. Now, if not everywhere, they are certainly moving into many a community – potentially one near you. Of the many issues we should consider, surely at the top of the list must be how such centres are powered and where that energy is sourced?

For this reason, I put down an amendment to the Data Bill, which says: “Consultation: datacentre power usage. On the day on which this Act is passed, the secretary of state must launch a consultation on the implications of the provisions in this Act for the power usage and energy efficiency of datacentres.”

As I said in the House of Lords debate, “It seems at least curious to have a Data Bill without talking about datacentres in terms of their power usage, their environmental impact…’

This is, rightly, a growing concern. A recent edition of the MIT Technology Review highlighted, “AI emissions [are] set to skyrocket even further”. This “skyrocketing” is seen in a trebling of datacentre emissions since 2018.

The MIT article is based upon a new paper, from teams at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, whose research examined 2132 datacentres in the US – representing 78% of all facilities in the country.

It is important for all of us to remember, it’s not just the training of these vast AI models that, particularly in the US, all too often burns coal and fossil fuels – every time we ask a query of any of the models, the power draws on.

Is data growth sustainable?

AI models are moving from mere language to video, music and more and the so need for power more than surges. Also, it’s not just AI, datacentres are the bedrock of so much of what we do, our pictures in the cloud or our work website, all needing that datacentre power.

In the US so much of this power comes from fossil fuels, not least coal due to the location of the centres and that fuel’s ability to deliver to demand all hours, in contrast to renewables. Is any of that sustainable though – both environmentally and energy wise? 

We have a real opportunity in the UK to lead when it comes to datacentre technologies. If the government chooses to, we could also take a positive role when it comes to the power usage, the sustainability and environmental position of these increasingly critical national and global infrastructure.

If the government wants to lead when it comes to green energy, the datacentre question seems very much to be at the centre

It’s far more than a technology question or even simply environmental – in so many senses, it is existential. In short, how do we power our lives? Even if we can generate the renewable energy, there are questions around how to store, how to deploy, how to even get it onto the grid in the first place with current connection constraints.

If the government wants to lead when it comes to green energy, if it wants to lead when it comes to new technologies, the datacentre question seems very much to be, well, at the centre of it.

Currently, power usage effectiveness (PUE) is the accepted measure for datacentre energy efficiency. I’m interested in views as to the effectiveness of this standard. I asked the government, during the debate, about its view of the current PUE standard. Is it something that gives the right measure of confidence to consumers?’

The government promised to write to me with a detailed response on all these issues. It will be good to understand what approach they intend to take on such an important environmental, economic, as well as technological matter. 

In conclusion, it’s abundantly clear that data is far from the “new oil” – rather, it requires multiple supplies of old oil to fuel its flow. We may well, one day, be able to power datacentres through nuclear options and sustainable sources, but even so questions must be asked as to the opportunity cost of using all of that resource against how it may otherwise be deployed. 

Data and the technologies it underpins and enables has such possibilities for our economic, social, and common good. But, as ever, it’s in our human hands – the discourse we drive, the decisions we take and the societies we enable will determine this. Ultimately, positively – we have the power.

Source is ComputerWeekly.com

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