AI boom thrusts Europe between power-hungry data centers and environmental goals
A immense hallway with supercomputers within a server room records middle.
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The growth in synthetic understanding is ushering in an environmentally aware shift in how records facilities perform, as Eu builders face force to decrease the aqua temperatures in their energy-hungry amenities to deal with the higher-powered chips of companies reminiscent of tech vast Nvidia.
AI is estimated to power a 160% expansion in call for for records facilities via 2030, analysis from Goldman Sachs displays — an build up that would come at a price to Europe’s decarbonization objectives, because the specialised chips worn via AI companies are anticipated to hike the calories utility of the information facilities that deploy them.
Top-powered chips — often referred to as graphics processing gadgets, or GPUs — are crucial for coaching and deploying immense language fashions, that are a kind of AI. Those GPUs want top density computing capability and put together extra warmth, which in the long run calls for less warm aqua to help decent cooling of the chips.
AI can eat 120 kilowatts of calories in only one sq. meter of an information middle, which is an identical to the facility intake and warmth dissipation of round 15 to twenty-five properties, in line with Andrey Korolenko, important product and infrastructure officer at Nebius, who referred particularly to the deployment of Nvidia’s Blackwell GB200 chip.
“This is extremely dense, and from the cooling standpoint of view you need different solutions,” he stated.
The weakness we’ve were given with the chipmakers, is AI is now a territory race run via the American marketplace the place land rights, calories get admission to and sustainability are moderately low at the pecking line, and the place marketplace domination is vital,” Winterson told GWN
Michael Winterson
chair of the EUDCA
Michael Winterson, chair of the European Data Center Association (EUDCA), warned that lowering water temperatures will eventually “basically power us again to an unsustainable condition that we have been in 25 years in the past.”
“The weakness we’ve were given with the chipmakers is [that] AI is now a territory race run via the American marketplace the place land rights, calories get admission to and sustainability are moderately low at the pecking line, and the place marketplace domination is vital,” Winterson told GWN.
Major equipment suppliers in Europe say that U.S. chip designers are calling on them to lower their water temperatures to accommodate the hotter AI chips, according to Herbert Radlinger, managing director at NDC-GARBE.
“That is stunning information, as a result of firstly everyone from the engineering facet anticipated to proceed for liquid cooling to run greater temperatures,” he told GWN, referring to the technology of liquid cooling, which is said to be more efficient than the more traditional method of air cooling.
‘Evolution discussion’
Energy efficiency is high on the European Commission’s agenda, as it seeks to reach its goal of reducing energy consumption by 11.7% by 2030. The EU predicted in 2018 that energy consumption of data centers could rise 28% by 2030, but the advent of AI is expected to boost that number two or threefold in some countries.
Winterson said that lowering water temperatures is “basically incompatible” with the EU’s recently launched Energy Efficiency Directive, which established a dedicated data base for data centers of a certain size to publicly report on their power consumption. The EUDCA has has been lobbying Brussels to consider these sustainability concerns.
Energy management firm Schneider Electric engages often with the EU on the topic. Many of the recent discussions have focused on different ways to source “top capability” for AI data centers and for the potential for more collaboration with utilities, said Steven Carlini, chief advocate of AI and data centers and vice president at Schneider Electric.
European Commission energy officials have also had exchanges with Nvidia to discuss energy consumption and the use of data centers with regard to the effectiveness of power use and that of chipsets.
GWN has approached Nvidia and the Commission for comment.
“Cooling is the second-largest client of calories within the records middle next the IT load,” Carlini told GWN in emailed comments. “The calories utility will stand however the PUE (Energy Utilization Effectiveness) would possibly not stand with decrease aqua temperatures regardless of the chillers having to paintings more difficult.”
Schneider Electric’s customers that are deploying Nvidia’s Blackwell GB200 super chip are asking for water temperatures of 20-24 degrees Celsius or between 68 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, Carlini said.
He added that this compares to temperatures of around 32 degrees Celsius with liquid cooling, or of around 30 degrees Celsius that Meta has suggested for the water it supplies to the hardware.
Ferhan Gunen, vice president of data center operations for the U.K. at Equinix, told GWN that there are a number of concerns about AI that Equinix has been discussing with its customers.
“They need to build up the density in their servers, which is, they need to have higher-power-using chips, or they need to have extra servers,” she said, adding that the shift is not “sunlit shorten.”
“It’s actually an evolution dialogue greater than anything else,” Gunen said.
Nvidia, which declined to comment on the cooling requirements of its chips, announced a new platform for its Blackwell GPUs earlier this year. It said that the architecture would enable organizations to run real-time generative AI on large language models at up to 25 times less cost and energy consumption compared to earlier technology.
Liquid cooling will require a “reconfiguration,” Gunen explained, adding that new data centers are already coming ready with this technology. “Sure, greater density will cruel extra capability utility, and also will cruel extra cooling requirement. However nearest the era is converting, so that you’re doing it another way. That’s why there’s a steadiness in all of this,” she stated.
Race for efficiency
Nebius, which has around $2 billion in cash on its balance sheet after splitting from Russia’s Yandex, has said it will be one of the first to bring Nvidia’s Blackwell platform to customers in 2025. The firm has also announced plans to invest more than $1 billion on AI infrastructure in Europe by the middle of next year.
Nebius’ Korolenko said liquid cooling is a “first step,” where cost of ownership will initially be worse before improving over time.
“There’s a fat push in order, however on the identical while, whilst you proceed to scale, you’re going to need to be able to make a choice, to be economical and now not sacrifice remaining. Energy potency is remarkable for the working prices. It’s at all times a top precedence,” Korolenko said.
Even before a boom in demand for AI applications hit the market, the data center industry in Europe was struggling to keep pace with the growing digital sector.
Sicco Boomsma, managing director of ING’s TMT team, said those involved in the market are “very delicate to capability” and that while Europe’s focus is on infrastructure, the U.S. has focused more on expanding assets in Europe where power is available.
“There’s an incredible quantity of knowledge middle operators additionally coming from the U.S. which might be aligning to bring to safeguard that their records middle infrastructure is in sequence with the numerous objectives that the EU has as smartly, reminiscent of being carbon impartial, reminiscent of being environment friendly, on aqua usage, keeping up biodiversity.”
“This is a type of a race the place they need to exhibit that their wisdom is chief to tremendous environment friendly infrastructure,” he stated.