Tag: electricity

The terms “data center,” “energy,” and “artificial intelligence” get bandied about in the media. It would be good to have a better understanding of what these things mean in the context of the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Hannah Ritchie sorts through some of this in an article titled, “How much electricity does AI consume?” Read it here.

From what I understand, “data center” does not mean a single thing. For example, when Google signed a long-term contract with NextEra Energy to buy most of the electricity generated from a refurbished nuclear power plant in Palo, Iowa it had specific intentions for use. In multiple public statements it indicated the electricity was to support cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Where exactly the electricity would be used has not been specified, nor is the contract tied to any specific future facility. Likewise, before Duane Arnold Energy Center comes on line in 2029, plans for usage could change.

If one uses artificial intelligence at home, it seems obvious AI is an industry in transition. I have been using various AI tools for about a year, and from a user perspective, the interface and results change often, in some cases daily. By 2029, there could be dramatic changes in both cloud and artificial intelligence process and usage. To use the Google example, what Google thinks it will use this contracted electricity today, may not be what they use it for in 2029 and beyond.

It is often missed that electricity and energy do not mean the same thing. The former is a subset of the latter. For example, when I worked as a consultant in Kentucky, the steel mill which was our customer had predicated its business on the availability of low electricity prices at night to melt scrap metal for their rolling mill. I have experience with a number of corporations that used energy to heat and dry products, forge steel and aluminum, and other industrial uses. That doesn’t mention home heating, automotive, and aviation uses of energy. When we discuss data centers, in terms of energy use, we are speaking of electricity.

A friend’s son works for a major multinational corporation and is working on development of artificial intelligence to support their manufacturing and sales operations. It is a major project involving travel to many countries where the company has a footprint. I expect most large companies are doing similarly. The results of these exploratory efforts will change how they do business, including the fear that AI will replace human workers in large numbers. There are fears and there are actualities and unfortunately we don’t know the latter today.

My point is when talking about data centers, energy and artificial intelligence we must do better than to bandy about terms for which there are better definitions. We should not avoid that discussion but participate actively in it when possible. Doing so meaningfully means knowing about what we bring up. In the case of AI we are discussing electricity.