I’m not a physics major or anything like that but I feel like there has to be a more efficiently and more environmentally friendly-way to cool down AI systems. I know that the AI systems need water to cool them down producing steam but what if we use that for something else? Many renewable energy sources use steam to turn turbines and maybe we can use that water for that. I’m not too knowledgeable about turbines or how much water AI produces but i just feel like that’s a good way to reuse it.
Modern data centers are actually pretty environmentally friendly, at least in comparison to alternative methods. They recycle the water used in their cooling systems and only add in as much water as is needed, as some water is burned off in use, but that is very minor.
This is actually worse for our environment. Most water is taken from groundwater, which is way better for the environment than building infrastructure for large-scale steam turbines.
AI servers don’t produce steam, as the processors don’t get hot enough to boil water when operating without malfunction. “Steam” is gaseous water produced by boiling.
What consumes water is evaporative cooling, where the phase change to water vapor causes a cooling effect, and the air is actually cooled by water sprayers or air forced through a water medium. Then the cooled, humid air makes a pass through the data center and exits, either directly or by an exchanger.
The cooling water goes into the air as part of its cycle. An improvement would be to do this not with potable water, but with ocean water.
Ultimately, the problem is that humans are an Earth-covering virus, depleting a one-time gift of minerals and energy stores, and are burning fossil fuels at a hundred times the rate carbon can be and was originally sequestered by all the plants and sunlight received by the Earth, and will wage war over the little bits of Earth that remain.
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Amen, brother - Just what Mr. Smith told Morpheus.