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With artificial intelligence expanding throughout data centers at all IT levels, solution providers may face increasing challenges in advising, guiding, and working with customers to provide sustainable and safe new approaches.
With artificial intelligence expanding throughout data centers at all IT levels, solution providers may face increasing challenges in advising, guiding, and working with customers to provide sustainable and safe new approaches.
Luckily, Schneider Electric - the leader in IT power and sustainability solutions - has mapped out a series of challenges and responses that can inform efficient and valuable paths to do just that.
In its White Paper 110, “The AI Disruption: Challenges and Guidance for Data Center Design,” Schneider Electric provides a straightforward and easy-to-grasp explanation of what the expansion of AI’s use means for both challenges and solutions.
The document examines everything from the impact of types of AI, such as training versus inference, and challenges that emerge with readying existing data centers for workloads and power consumption not considered when they were first designed.
On the numbers alone, the growth is almost mind-blowing:
“We estimate that AI represents 4.5 GW of power consumption (i.e., demand) today and project this to grow at a CAGR of 25 percent to 33 percent, resulting in a total consumption of 14 GW to 18.7 GW by 2028,” Schneider Electric estimates.
For data centers that are growing workloads to support more intense uses of AI - whether for computation, analytics, or even customer service chatbots - solution providers may be well-advised to assess everything from potential rack capacity to electrical wiring to server room airflow.
Another recent white paper examines the buildout of AI in the data center and reaches largely the same conclusions.
“Data centers that once operated in the background are well known by almost everyone thanks to recent Artificial Intelligence hype,” it states “There has been a wave of new scrutiny of data center energy use and carbon emissions. However, forecasts showing future sustainability of the sector and active participation in carbon footprint reduction from the economy present optimistic perspectives.”
