Insights

Getting the balance right

Co-author: Jon Nuttall, Director

The UK government recently announced a blueprint to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) and expand data centres. It represents a significant leap towards establishing the UK as a global leader in AI innovation and adoption. While the move signals economic opportunity, it raises important questions around the energy demands associated with these rapidly growing facilities. It is essential to balance the potential for progress against the need to protect local communities and the environment.

Solving the seemingly impossible problems

The potential benefits of data centres—social, economic, and technological—could be profound. Advancements in AI could revolutionise healthcare, education, and climate science, addressing some of society’s most pressing issues.

The carbon cost of the built environment is just such an issue. Buildings consume about 34% of the world’s available energy, of which 20 to 30% is wasted due to inefficiencies. Construction and demolition contribute to 35% of total global waste. AI could help us solve these challenges with its processing power requiring a fraction of the carbon cost of the problems we are solving, reducing the environmental impact significantly more quickly within our industry.

First, AI-powered simulations will help us iterate and improve building designs at very low cost and futureproof for climate resilience using weather prediction data. The second is sentience. It may sound like science fiction, but sentient buildings of the near future will collaborate with their landlords and tenants to be more efficient. The third is self-sustaining; embedding AI into the systems that heat, light and cool our buildings to reduce energy inefficiencies and without us even noticing.

More energy efficient AI at the source

Still, we must take proactive steps to mitigate the environmental impact of the country’s AI ambitions. AI is driving the demand for data processing capacity but can also optimise data centre servicing, capacity management, performance management, and cooling.

Data centre facilities often have more efficient and innovative cooling systems, such as liquid immersion cooling, compared to workplace, education and research facilities, meaning that the energy requirement is being dealt with more effectively.

Advancements in server and cooling technology allows greater variability in data hall temperature, resulting in lower energy usage within the data centre facility i.e. reduced Power Usage Efficiency (PUE).

Data centre co-benefits

Waste heat and heat rejection from data centres offers an opportunity for local developments to benefit from this energy. We recently worked with a client that aimed to harness the waste energy from the data centres to grow crops in a ‘vertical farm’. The aim of this; to help reduce associated emissions with agriculture and advance crop growing technology. Combining data hall technology and agriculture offers opportunities to enhance farming either via waste heat capture or using AI to improve yields with real time crop monitoring, soil analysis and irrigation control.

These all-electric buildings also offer greater opportunities to reduce impact by using green and renewable power. This can directly contribute to end users’ and clients’ corporate responsibility goals, for example reducing Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions.

Getting the balance right

Ultimately, facilities designed to minimise their impact on the environment and adapt to future trends will benefit from reduced emissions, and a much longer lifespan, so less-embodied carbon per byte.

The UK’s investment in AI and data centres offers a transformative opportunity for communities and the economy, if approached with innovation and sustainably working in tandem to deliver an AI revolution without costing the earth.