By Michael Dempsey
Copyright bbc
The data centre industry is acutely aware that legislators are keeping an eye on the downsides of AI factories with their intense energy use having a potential impact on local infrastructure and the environment.
One of these environmental impacts includes a hefty supply of water to cool toiling chips.
In the US state of Virginia, home to an expanding population of data centres that keep tech giants like Amazon and Google in business, a bill tying approval of new sites to water consumption figures is under consideration.
Meanwhile a proposed AI factory in northern Lincolnshire in the UK has run into objections from Anglian Water, which is responsible for keeping taps on in the area of the proposed site.
Anglian Water points out that it is not obliged to supply water for non-domestic use and suggests recycled water from the final stage of effluent treatment as a coolant rather than drinking water.
Given the practical problems and enormous costs AI data centres face, is the whole movement really one big bubble?
One speaker at recent data centre conference coined the term “bragawatts” to describe how the industry is talking up the scale of proposed AI sites.
Zahl Limbuwala is a data centre specialist at tech investment advisors DTCP. He acknowledges big questions around the future of AI data centre spending.
“The current trajectory is very difficult to believe. There has certainly been a lot of bragging going on. But investment has to deliver a return or the market will correct itself.”
Bearing these cautions in mind, he still believes AI merits a special place in investment terms. “AI will have more impact than previous technologies, including the internet. So it’s feasible we’ll need all those gigawatts.”
He notes that bragging apart, AI data centres “are the real estate of the tech world.” Speculative tech bubbles such as the dotcom boom of the 1990s lacked a bricks and mortar base. AI data centres are very solid. But the spending boom behind them cannot last forever.
