Warmth Waves Endanger Information Facilities That Energy AI
A brand new evaluation warns that AI amenities might be pressured to cease working due to water shortages and blackouts
Christoph Burgstedt/Science Picture Library/Getty Photographs
CLIMATEWIRE | Information heart hubs worldwide are more and more threatened by rising temperatures as local weather change continues to speed up.
Hotter climate places stress on water sources and electrical energy technology that assist preserve information facilities from overheating. Competitors over water can result in battle with native communities, whereas energy outages can disrupt companies. Each outcomes can pressure information heart operations, in accordance with new analysis from danger intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.
“Information heart operators are innovating options to extend resilience and offset sustainability considerations, however rising temperatures improve these challenges,” Capucine Could, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, stated within the report.
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The analysis comes as information facilities growth to fulfill rising calls for for synthetic intelligence and cloud computing. Many are constructed to optimize water use and vitality to face up to potential disruptions, the report stated. However there might be challenges forward because the tempo of local weather change quickens and as vitality demand grows.
“Options are prone to come from a mix of innovation and technological growth, coverage interventions and incentives, corresponding to requiring concurrent renewable vitality growth, in addition to accountable funding practices,” Olivia Dobson, director of resilience at Verisk Maplecroft, stated in an electronic mail.
But within the U.S., the Trump administration is slashing clear vitality incentives and arguing that extra fossil gas manufacturing is required to help the expansion of knowledge facilities for AI, which it’s prioritizing. Fossil gas emissions are the principle reason for local weather change.
One current research argued that AI can be utilized to assist energy information facilities with cleaner types of vitality, corresponding to wind and photo voltaic.
Analysis reveals that warmth waves are anticipated to turn out to be extra frequent and extreme as local weather change accelerates, including to the pressure on vitality methods as demand spikes for energy wanted to run air conditioners and different cooling methods.
A current warmth wave in Europe drove energy demand up 14 % and led to energy outages as a result of cooling issues at nuclear vegetation, in accordance with Ember, a worldwide vitality assume tank. Document-breaking international temperatures final yr brought about electrical energy demand to spike throughout sure months within the U.S., China and India — resulting in a surge in coal energy technology.
The brand new report appears on the high 100 information heart hubs globally, positioned in areas corresponding to Los Angeles; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Bangkok.
It discovered that 56 % of these hubs must meet rising cooling calls for every year. In a state of affairs the place international locations fail to chop planet-warming emissions and international temperatures rise above 4 levels Celsius in comparison with preindustrial occasions, round two-thirds of knowledge facilities might be at excessive or very excessive danger by 2040. On common, these hubs may see an 83 % improve within the variety of days that set off cooling necessities between 2030 and 2080, the analysis stated.
Within the subsequent 5 years, greater than half of the highest information heart cities may additionally need to grapple with water shortages. Water is a main technique of offering cooling. Cities going through the best danger are within the Center East, corresponding to Dubai and Istanbul. U.S. cities can even be at excessive or very excessive danger by 2030, the analysis stated, pointing to Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix.
It notes that vitality demand is anticipated to develop within the subsequent 5 years, as excessive warmth challenges energy transmission. “The altering local weather will more and more affect ageing energy infrastructure even in at the moment ‘low’ danger markets,” the report stated.
It has already occurred.
A extreme warmth wave in 2022 knocked out information facilities in London utilized by Google and Oracle, which attributed the outages to issues with their cooling methods, Bloomberg reported. An information heart for the social media platform X succumbed to warmth just a few months later in California.
Reprinted from E&E Information with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E Information offers important information for vitality and atmosphere professionals.
