How AI impacts a data centre’s sustainability strategy

As AI use continues to grow within organisations, data centres that are powering some of these businesses are ensuring they stay sustainable, despite the extra energy AI tools use.

David Hirst, group executive at Macquarie Technology Group explained to Digital Nation how data centres stay sustainable amidst the growing use of AI.

He said the only place that AI can live is inside a data centre.

“Data centres are the most efficient place for an AI to live, it's able to provide big power and big cooling for AI. Although it consumes a significant amount of power and a significant amount of cooling, the benefits are immense,” Hirst said.

Hirst explained that Macquarie Technology Group’s customers are becoming more aware of their carbon footprint and are making concerted efforts to reduce it.

“All of our customers, especially our biggest customers are focused on their environmental impact on all their IT infrastructure that they place in data centres, including AI,” he said.

“They are always looking at how to make the data centre more sustainable, but not just the data centre, the whole ecosystem. Their underlying survey infrastructure, their efficiency across the applications that are consuming that infrastructure and how it interacts with the end user.”

Hirst said there are “material benefits” for his customers to be sustainable because a reduction in power usage means a reduction in energy bills.

“If they can reduce the cost of power or they can reduce the amount of waste to landfill, or they can reduce other environmental impacts, then these are all positive things that help their bottom line as well as the environment,” he said.

Generative AI impact

With the emergence of generative AI, Hirst explained how it has impacted a data centre’s ESG efforts.

“If you can do things in a smarter, more efficient way, again, you're using less power on the factory floor,” he said.

“If you can use driverless vehicles and there's just endless efficiency gains that industry can get out of AI, which will on balance be much better for the environment than the power it's consuming.”

Hirst said he sees generative AI as a “big benefit”, but organisations still need to be aware of their sustainability targets.

“But what we all need to do is be mindful of the impact that we have on our environment and make sure that when we are doing these training runs and modules, we are using the AI infrastructure in the most efficient way possible,” he said.

“But that's not just the data centre providers, that's the AI companies that are deploying inside the data centre itself.”