The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.
Sorry to nitpick but doesn’t 100% of it end up as heat? Vibrations, light, sounds, radio waves- all a tiny fraction of the power are also eventually absorbed by the environment.
That was my understanding at least
My understanding is that some tiny portion, like 1-2%, is actually used in a meaningful way to do calculations to do what you want, but that could incorrect. Or it may be that that tiny portion still inevitably turns to heat, just indirectly somehow. I’m not sure, though, you could be right.
All of the energy that does calculations gets turned into heat. The only energy that doesn’t get directly turned into heat is the mechanical energy produced by the fans (which ends up turning into heat), and the electromagnetic radiation (which also ends up turning into heat).
If the calculations didn’t convert energy into heat, a computer would essentially use no power. You can think of a computer like a really complex wire. The power consumption you see is actually the heat loss of that wire. The less heat you lose, the more efficient the wire is.
Yeah but will that happen in the 6M radius that we are talking about?
No, it’ll all happen inside the data center. The problem with that is computers hate all that heat, so they pipe it all away and dump it outside to the best of their ability. The data center may not be 6 miles wide, but then the wind starts blowing the heat around. Hell, even on a perfectly still day, heat would radiate out. They’re making enough heat to keep every single home in a city of 500,000+ people comfortable in winter, so it’s either that or the data center turns into the world’s largest oven.