Researchers
expect that
cloud electricity use
could rise at least
300% in the next
decade.
That estimate was before
our global COVID-19
pandemic.
The digital cloud is now
even more linked to our
economic health, during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Millions of students
are ‘driving’ to class
on the internet,
instead of walking.
A large number of people
are video-conferencing
to work now.
They don't burn gasoline
driving to work.
By the first week of April,
U.S. gasoline use had
collapsed by 30%.
But overall electric demand
was down less than 7%.
Transportation fuel use
will eventually rebound,
but real economic growth
is tied to our electricity-
fueled digital future.
There have been
massive increases
in internet traffic
from all types of
stay-at-home
activities.
Streaming movies and videos.
Playing video games.
Ordering groceries online.
Teleconferencing
Video chatting.
Telemedicine.
More cloud computing
= greater demand for energy.
And artificial Intelligence (AI)
work uses more energy
than ever before.
Overall costs of grid
kilowatt-hours are
200% to 300% higher
in Europe where the
share of power from
wind/solar is large.
Big industrial electricity users,
including tech companies,
generally get deep discounts
from the grid average, which
leaves consumers burdened
with higher costs.
With a “connected”
smartphone, 99% of
the energy used is hidden
in the cloud’s invisible
infrastructure.
Digital engines that power
the cloud are located in the
thousands of nondescript
warehouse-scale data centers,
where thousands of
refrigerator-sized racks
of silicon machines power
our applications and where
the exploding volumes
of data are stored.
Each such rack burns
more electricity annually
than 50 Tesla electric cars.
These data centers are
connected to markets
with even more
power-burning hardware
that propel bytes along
roughly one billion miles
of information highways
comprised of glass cables,
and through 4 million
cell towers.
The global information
infrastructure uses roughly
2,000 terawatt-hours
of electricity a year.
That’s over 100 times
more electricity than all the
world’s five million electric
cars use each year.
The average electricity used
by each smartphone is greater
than the annual energy used
by a typical home refrigerator,
over a full year.
In the past five years,
there has been a dramatic
acceleration in data center
spending on hardware
and buildings, and a huge
jump in the power density
of that hardware.
More square feet
of data centers
have been built
in the past five years
than during the entire
prior decade.
There is even
a new category
of “hyperscale”
data centers:
Silicon-filled buildings
each of which covers
over one million
square feet.
There are already
500 hyperscale
data centers
across the planet.
A faster expansion
of the cloud is coming
in the future.
The big drivers
of cloud traffic
are AI, more video,
and especially
data-intense
virtual reality.
AI is the most data hungry
and power intensive use
of silicon yet.
The world wants to use
billions of AI chips.
The computing
power devoted
to machine learning
has been doubling
every several months.
Consumers are ready for
virtual reality-based video,
requiring up to a 1,000x
increase in image density,
which will drive data traffic
up roughly 20-fold.
The technology is ready,
and the coming wave of
high-speed 5G networks
have the capacity to handle
all those extra pixels.
Since all bits are electrons,
this means more virtual reality
leads to higher electricity
power demands.
Light speed is too slow
to deliver AI-driven intelligence
from remote data centers
to real-time applications,
such as VR for conferences
and games, autonomous vehicles,
automated manufacturing, or
“smart” physical infrastructures,
including smart hospitals
and diagnostic systems.
Especially for medical care:
One square foot of a hospital
already uses some five-fold
more energy than a square foot
in other commercial buildings.
There is a recent trend
of building micro-data
centers located
closer to customers
on “the edge.”
Edge data centers are now
forecast to add 100,000 MW
of power demand before
a decade is out.
That’s far more than
the power capacity
of the entire California
electric grid.