The clamour for more data centres is exhausting. The answer may not be in Ireland, or even on Earth, says Billy MacInnes
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Image: Nasa
I don’t know about you, but I’m old enough to remember when saying “there was never a dull moment” meant you had thoroughly enjoyed yourself, whether it was on holiday, watching a concert, going to a sports event or spending an evening with friends.
Nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a dull moment anywhere. We’re surrounded by drama, events, crises, rows, disputes, fears, instability, uncertainty, euphoric highs, devastating lows, something is always happening. Speaking for myself, there are moments when dull would be a welcome respite.
One subject that hasn’t been boring for quite a while is data centres and there were two very interesting stories on that subject within a couple of days of each other. To a certain extent, they were arguably in the wrong order. The first story, concerning Google’s plans to have data centres in outer space, addresses the concerns around data centre energy use raised in the second, reporting plans by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) to mandate new data centres supply electricity to homes and businesses in return for power grid connections.
According to the first story, Google’s Project Suncatcher aims to run machine learning and AI in outer space with plans to launch satellites equipped with AI hardware in 2027. The premise for this ambitious space age plan is that by tapping into solar energy outside the atmosphere, Google and others can reduce, if not eliminate, the energy demands of AI on earth by moving it off planet.
On the face of it, this is a great idea. After all, the energy provided by the sun far surpasses the energy we generate on this planet we call home. As a minor point, it will be interesting what term we settle on to describe this form of computing, seeing as it will take place far beyond the cloud.
Of course, there’s a significant expense to establishing data centres in space although, on the other hand, there could be big gains when it comes to planning applications.
Which brings us to Ireland and the CRU’s plans, reported in the Irish Times, for new data centres to have power plants or batteries that match their energy demands. In addition, the generators or batteries must also supply electricity to homes and businesses.
Digital Infrastructure Ireland (DII) has argued that this measure could double the cost of building a data centre and that data centres could be classed as electricity suppliers and forced to join the Emissions Trading Scheme where they would pay for the greenhouse gas they produce.
Supporters of locating data centres in Ireland always argue they are critical in the digital age where so many activities are online, from shopping to banking, meetings, making calls, watching films, listening to music, sharing videos, but they never address why, if that’s the case, companies are willing to service those activities in other, often much bigger, countries through data centres located in Ireland.
If location was the most important factor in how well data centres could serve populations, they would be far more widely dispersed than they are today. And Ireland would house far fewer than it does.
Plans to put data centres in space only serve to underline the fact that location is not a barrier. Looking further ahead, one concern I would have is that by developing AI data centres that are fully untethered from the earth, we could be helping to accelerate the development of fully autonomous AI systems that can tap into vast amounts of energy and are completely detached from the earth and its human inhabitants. That’s not a scary prospect at all.
All this pre-supposes, of course, that the current AI boom will continue unchecked, which is definitely not guaranteed. Who knows, maybe all those data centres will end up lost in space.