According to scientists, data centers consume 2-3 percent of the world's electricity, and that figure could double in the future. This is a huge amount of energy that must be generated somehow, and the ways of generating electricity are still far from environmentally friendly. Therefore, experts have been talking about this problem for a long time and are trying to find a solution.
What leads to an increase in energy consumption in data centers?
In simple words - load growth. But what exactly causes this load increase? Here are a few factors:
- Advances in artificial intelligence. Modern AI consumes massive amounts of computing power. In the future, data centers may begin to be built specifically for AI work;
- The gaming industry. The development of online gaming is complemented by the iGaming industry. Sites and applications with gambling actively attract new customers. Search engine leaders, including 1win with its most significant number of bonuses, are particularly good at this. To participate in the promotion, you need to use the 1win promo code when registering. Gifts and an abundance of games have brought millions of new players to iGaming, including young people.
- Social networks. The most prominent sites that attract multi-billion dollar traffic. YouTube has long been setting up separate data centers to store YouTube videos. And as humanity is increasingly producing new content, the need for computing power will only grow.
- Cryptocurrency. The use of Bitcoin in El Salvador has shown good results. Which means that other countries may allow cryptocurrency in the future. In addition, data centers already exist today for mining cryptocurrencies.
Modern technology already allows data centers to be more energy efficient. AI, the Internet of Things, and machine learning are being implemented to reduce energy consumption for cooling and equipment operations. It was recently reported that Google, with the help of DeepMind AI, managed to achieve a 40% reduction in energy consumption.
Another way out is to purchase green energy to run data centers. Solar and wind power can partially cover the needs of these major hubs of the global internet. Some are building data centers in locations with more solar or wind activity to get the energy they need locally.
Also, data centers can more efficiently channel heat from equipment operations and use it to provide heat. This practice has been successfully implemented in Sweden, where a data center heats nearby buildings.
