AI's hidden climate costs | About That

As the demand for artificial intelligence grows, so does its thirst for one of our planet’s most precious resources. Andrew Chang explores how the supercomputers that run AI stay cool — by using massive amounts of fresh, clean drinking water.

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[chaoticrealm]

At this time 5 months after the video posted, , this only has 8.9k views. Clearly Google's AI does not approve of this video lol

[TRexOne]

Why not use the warm water for where warm water is needed like heating?

[ss]

Thank you for posting and answering the questions other videos left me with.

[genuinefreewilly]

I thought part of the point of AI was to explore and find efficiencies not realized

[WolvenSpectre]

Interesting Video taking into account of it.

Also I was today years old when I found out that video of the plant was used as the location of The Foundation for The Pretender in the 1990's, and a couple of other shows at the same time. Small World.

[PabloEder]

To clarify, the water does not disappear, is used on a cycle where it cools and warms up. It is not just destroying the water to power chips.

[Alex-jslg]

How is it that the NSA (specifically in Fort Meade) and Google (in Douglas County, Georgia) have been using graywater to cool some of *their* large-scale computing equipment *for a decade*, but the University of Toronto needs potable water for their purposes? It sounds to me like the problem is that the equipment they currently use for cooling is simply not designed to be used with anything but purified water. This seems more like a matter of, "it would take a lot of resources to move away from using potable water, " as opposed to one of, "we can't cool computers with anything besides clean water." This isn't a technological limitation, it's a structural/financial one.

Frankly, if sweating is an apt analogy for computer cooling, then why shouldn't we use ocean water where possible? Salt water has a specific heat capacity that's barely lower than that of fresh water, so its still a great coolant. There are entire industries built around applications for graywater and salt water - I see no reason why those couldn't be applied to data centres.

I'd be interested to hear Animesh's explanation as to any actual *technological* limitations to solving this problem as opposed to an explanation for why *their specific system* requires potable water. If tap water still needs to be treated by the school (he explains that even drinking water isn't pure enough for their machinery), it seems like it's unnecessary to be using potable water in the first place.

[jamesduncan]

So why isn’t Ontario the datacenter of the world

[jeffliu]

We inherently have advantages over almost every country in the world:
1. We have 1/3 of the world 's fresh water.
2. We have long, cold winter, which can serve as free cooling system.
When AI prevails and become more prominent in terms of affecting our daily life, I see Canada has a huge advantage.

[stanleykubrick]

Why is the water pumped back to the lake in a polluted state as shown at the end of this (13:00)?
The video does a poor job of explaining why open loop water needs to be sourced. In short, this was quite superficial.

[Thatufo]

Where are Microsoft's under water/sea server farms at?

[nathanglessing]

If only we built Data centers in a place with cold water, cold temperatures, and abundant clean energy we could reduce its environmental impact. O wait, that’s right, nobody wants to invest in Canada 😂

[kikikut]

? you would need fresh/clean/treated water (re comment @ 8:42) for A.I.'s functioning/data centers? but it looks like there are cases where the water is not clean/potable, and even ocean/salt water is being used (though maybe not as efficiently since its heat capacity is less than fresh water)! i wonder how significant the difference in efficiency is in relation to how much more water would be used when using ocean water to cool for example.

[jamesalexanderduncan]

I am concerned about the cobalt they use in the processors

[TylerBurleigh]

If we're going to get serious about addressing water consumption then we need to look at agriculture and look to reduce our reliance on animals as a source of food.

[louern]

the moment i see anyone drinking water from plastic bottles, i think of the great pacific garbage patch.

[sherbournesubwaymess]

"I argue that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) shouldn't receive public funding. With plentiful digital media sources, we don't need a funded national broadcaster like when CBC was established. Concerns about CBC's potential political bias and the massive yearly billion-dollar funding that could benefit other public needs like healthcare or education also make me question its necessity in today's media landscape." - ChatGPT

[Mark_Chandler]

just a big swamp cooler...they have been around forever

[kinngrimm]

Not like we don't already have anyways water shortages -_-

[choingmanggong]

And that is why ordinary Ontarians and soon all Canadians will have to pay for the very water they once thought they owned.