Water supplies may face significant demands from the UK’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector if the country is to become a leader in this field of technology. While the tech sector says it is working to promote greener and more sustainable cooling systems for the massive data centres that power AI, industry sources have voiced concern about the impact that the strain created by such resources might have on fresh drinking water supplies. Ministers have committed to the development of several data centres, hoping that this will help drive economic growth. However, concerns have been expressed about net clean energy generation by 2030.
Sir Keir Starmer, the current Leader of the Opposition in the UK and a key figure in British politics, has stated that he plans to make this country a leader in AI development. He is also interested in the development of other emerging technologies like quantum computing. However, stakeholders fear that the enormous data centres that achieve these goals will demand large quantities of fresh drinking water supplies. Although the building of new reservoirs has been proposed as a means of easing the challenge of drought, these same proposals may be situated in areas where new data centres are also expected to be built.
Stakeholders in the AI sector acknowledge that the technology will require a significant amount of water to prevent its massive servers from overheating. However, officials in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have admitted that the plants could face significant sustainability issues. It has therefore been suggested that companies operating in this area should be required to report accurately on how much energy and water their data centres are using. Environmental sustainability requirements could be established for all data centres to reduce drinking water use and help ensure against damaging the environment.
Data centres that power AI use fresh, mains water, as this is less likely to clog equipment. The amount of water used varies greatly depending on such factors as the surrounding environment. Microsoft saw its global water use rise by 34% as AI tools were being developed. And Google halted plans for a data centre in Chile following local uproar over water use, subsequently changing the cooling system at another centre in the same country.
The data industry is working hard to make data centres more efficient and to explore alternative cooling methods that require significantly less water. These options include free air cooling and dry cooling. Microsoft’s new developments in Phoenix, Arizona and Wisconsin will use closed-loop cooling, allowing water to be reprocessed. These improvements demonstrate that AI can help drive sustainability forward and also promote technological progress. However, more information about the water consumption of individual data centres will be required in the long term
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
