Alex Theakston’s Post

The surge in artificial intelligence is driving the growth of data centers in unexpected locations, including Kentucky. The state's largest utility and legislature are working to attract major investments from tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, which could lead to billions in economic development. Kentucky's new tax incentives, outlined in House Bill 8, aim to capitalize on this trend by offering significant tax breaks for substantial data center investments. 🔗 Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gw_-HfNQ #datacenter #datacenterconstruction #kentucky #growth #economyboom #tech #taxincentives

“Microsoft operates more than 300 data centers around the world, and in 2021 declared itself “on pace to build between 50 and 100 new datacenters each year for the foreseeable future.” The dual task of laying down those new facilities and making them sustainable has fallen to Noelle Walsh, the head of Microsoft’s data-center division." In the midst of unprecedented technological growth, we're seeing a story unfold that's filled with both encouraging progress on environmental sustainability and daunting challenges. While this articles narrative might lean towards the pessimistic side, it's important to shine a light on efforts like those of Microsoft who are delicately balancing the push for environmental betterment with the rapid expansion of digital services. Solving these challenges, at scale, with this exponential rate of growth, is an extrodinary challenge. The obstacles presented by the impending 10 - 100x growth in digital infrastructure are immense, but within them lies the seed for innovation and forward-thinking. It's a reminder that through collaboration with our partners and stakeholders in the industry, we have the capability to not just confront these environmental issues but also to lay the groundwork for a future that marries technological advancement with ecological stewardship. Some great perspectives from Noelle in this interview: "Walsh told me the company is moving aggressively to reach its end-of-the-decade environmental benchmarks. It’s partnering with power providers to bring more solar and wind energy online. It’s investing in fusion companies and researching new battery designs. It’s working across water-stressed regions, including Arizona, to put water back into local lakes and rivers. “Even with our surge in demand and surge in AI,” she said, “our 2025 goals have stayed the same, and so have our 2030 goals.” “But all of this work takes time—including years of consultation with local authorities, power providers, and communities, as well as risky, long-term bets on basic research. In comparison, the AI explosion happened overnight. On an earnings call last summer, Microsoft told investors that the Azure OpenAI Service was bringing in new customers at a rate of nearly 100 a day.” “AI didn’t create these problems, but it’s certainly making them worse. According to Walsh, AI applications are among the most computationally intensive that Azure supports, which creates a need for more data centers overall while also upping the energy and cooling demands at each one. On top of that, generative-AI applications in particular can be orders of magnitude more energy-intensive than the predictive-AI applications that came before. “We still don’t appreciate the energy needs of this technology,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in January at Davos. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough.” #ai #water #digitalinfrastructure #thepursuitofexxellence #sustainability

Let's connect to discuss joining #TeamWalbridge on these growing projects!

💡 Get a behind-the-scenes look at the technological complexity that ensures Google data centers work globally and at a massive scale. ❓ What is a data center? ❓ How does Google design its data centers? ❓ What are the core principles behind Google data centers? ❓ How does Google secure its data centers? ❓ How does Google select a data center location? ➡ An animated video series about the innovation behind Google data centers and provide answers to the above questions. I am sure you will love to watch these videos. : https://lnkd.in/eYSNvM56 follow Amit Dass for more such content. #google #datacenter #design #technology #operations, and #sustainability #gcp #cloud

How many data centers fit in a US state? Virginia has the largest concentration of data centers anywhere in the world (more than 300) that come with a huge increase in demand for energy upgrades, extensive acreage, and lots of water to operate. These centers are now consuming energy equivalent to thousands of households, and it's spiking Virginia's energy usage alarmingly. 📈 Data centers enable our binge-watching, cloud storage, and AI advancements. But at what cost? At Hive, we're confronting this challenge head-on and in the simplest way: we don't use data centers. This is how: https://lnkd.in/eHC_d5Kn A sustainable digital world needs a sustainable cloud. 🌿🌐 #HiveGreenTech #SustainableData #EnergyEfficiency

The 'cloud' is nothing but a clever marketing scheme. There is no 'cloud'. Just gazillions of data centers, polluting the skies, consuming too much energy, and guzzling billions of gallons of water every year. No amount of holiday selfies is worth the amount of environmental damage these beasts inflict. No amount of bingable shows can mitigate the damage on local communities. Do your research (but use a regular privacy-focused green search engine like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia instead of AI).

..."Microsoft bought 279 acres for this location... the plot holds two finished buildings...and seven more are on the way. Each will be decked out with rows of servers and computers that must be kept below a certain temperature. The complex has been designated partly for OpenAI’s use, according to a person familiar with the plan. (Both Microsoft and OpenAI declined to comment on this assertion.) And Microsoft plans to absorb its excess heat with a steady flow of air and, as needed, evaporated drinking water. Use of the latter is projected to reach more than 50 million gallons every year...there were dozens of other facilities I could visit in the area, including those run by Apple, Amazon, Meta, and, soon, Google. Not too far from California, and with plenty of cheap land, Greater Phoenix is among the fastest-growing hubs in the U.S. for data centers… Researchers at UC Riverside estimated last year, for example, that global AI demand could cause data centers to suck up 1.1 trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons of fresh water by 2027. A separate study from a university in the Netherlands, this one peer-reviewed, found that AI servers’ electricity demand could grow, over the same period, to be on the order of 100 terawatt hours per year, about as much as the entire annual consumption of Argentina or Sweden. Noelle Walsh, the head of Microsoft’s data-center division said "The company is transitioning some data centers, including those in Arizona, to designs that use less or no water, cooling themselves instead with giant fans. Her team is also working with steel and concrete suppliers to make the building materials for each data center more sustainable, and she’d like to see server components recycled whenever possible... In the meantime, though, Microsoft has been reluctant to provide customers with specific details on the environmental impacts of their cloud-service needs."

When you think about London what first comes to mind? Probably not datacentres.. But the fact is, the UK will be only the second country (only behind the US) to become a “2 Gigawatt Market" for datacentres. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all established public cloud datacentres in West and West London causing the postponment of residential projects due to insufficient capacity in the electricity grid (as covered by the The Times). This videos shows one of these large cloud datacentres to give an idea of scale: https://lnkd.in/ep7U_rwd These cloud datacentre projects have now expanded to East London, Swindon, South Oxfordshire, Bracknell Forest and Manchester among others. Each location will bear the environmental and social consequences if not handled responsibly. But who’s responsible for the impact? While it’s up to the cloud providers and datacentre owners to ensure the sustainability 'of' these data centres. It is the enterprises that utilise them who have a responsibility to keep sustainability 'in' the cloud optimised (30% of the wasteful environmental impact can be mitigated through GreenOps). With the tsunami of AI just on the horizon the environmental impact of these current and future cloud datacentres projects in the UK will become less-and-less invisible as their impact rises out of the shadows. 'Through' the cloud, technology can be built as an unstoppable force for good, but “there are no such thing as solutions, only trade offs” and there needs to be public visibility over the data centres that make this growth possible. Resources below: DC Byte https://lnkd.in/eHCHihTN The Times https://lnkd.in/e-Ht-zgb Microsoft  https://lnkd.in/ep7U_rwd #datacentres #london #sustainability

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has described a major #investment by Microsoft into #uk #datacentres as a “turning point” for the nation as it strives to become a science #superpower. The tech giant has committed £2.5bn to building #artificialintelligence (AI) #infrastructure in the UK, including doubling its data centre space, which is crucial to the development of #aimodels . With the launch of #largelanguagemodels (LLMs) for #generativeartificialintelligence (GenAI), the world has become both enamored and concerned with the potential for #ai. The ability to hold a conversation, pass a test, develop a research paper, or write software code are tremendous feats of AI, but they are only the beginning to what GenAI will be able to accomplish over the next few years. All this #innovative capability comes at a high cost in terms of processing performance and power consumption. So, while the potential for AI may be limitless, physics and costs may ultimately be the boundaries. TIRIAS Research forecasts that on the current course, generative AI data center server infrastructure plus operating costs will exceed $76 billion by 2028, with growth challenging the business models and profitability of emergent services such as search, content creation, and business automation incorporating GenAI. Preparing data centers for generative AI is a complex task that requires careful planning and ongoing maintenance to meet the specific needs of AI projects. To create such facilities, it is essential to focus on #scalability, redundancy, high-performance computing, #energyefficiency, and #security. #csuiteleaders #executivedirectors #digitaltransformationstrategy #strategytoexecution #nonexecutivedirectors #businessgrowth #commmunications #vision #designthinkingprocess #riskgovernance #riskmanagement #productinnovation #opportunities #boardofdirectors #growthcapital #businesssmodelinnovation #cybersecutity #cisos #ctos https://lnkd.in/erBXnF8G

Underwater data centers are significant for their potential in reducing environmental impact, improving performance, and enhancing security. Despite challenges, their sustainable and efficient power usage makes them an attractive option for organizations aiming to minimize their carbon footprint.