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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[@chaoticrealm777]

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

[@louern123]

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

[@jeffliu4203]

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.

[@jamesduncan915]

So why isn’t Ontario the datacenter of the world

[@genuinefreewilly5706]

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.

[@That1ufo]

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

[@stanleykubrick8786]

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.

[@kikikut22]

? 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.

[@ExcaliburVids]

The problem is probably less about efficiency and more about corrosion, salt water is typically avoided in liquid cooling of computer parts because of that, also its much more conductive so if there were a leak of some kind its much more likely to cause some kind of catostrphic failure.

[@TRexOne]

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

[@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

[@Terra_Lopez]

ChatGPT strikes back!

[@That1ufo]

@@Terra_Lopez ChatGTP for PM!

[@DaveBuildsThings]

ShiteGPT me thinks.

[@choingmanggong]

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

[@Alex-js5lg]

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.

[@kinngrimm]

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

[@Mark_Chandler]

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

[@9UaYXxB]

It's not a swamp cooler.... it's a cooling tower. Water headers at the top of the tower shower water down (by gravity) over tubes which also contain water. The water in the tubes that are wetted by the tower comes in warm, leaves at a cooler temperature. Then that water is circulated down to a building mechanical room , where there is a mechanical chiller, which is a very large compressor system with a heat exchanger mounted to it. Freon on one side of a heat exchanger tube bundle chills a 3rd (major) circulating water system.... this water is piped off to various buildings where it will run to radiator-fan assemblies which then by their thermostat control systems air condition spaces within those buildings. The freon that picked up heat at the compressor dumps its heat to another heat exchanger connected to a 'return water' circuit going back up to the roof cooling tower.

[@Mark_Chandler]

@@9UaYXxB u r correct, however it cools through evaporation which is how a swamp cooler works. They have adapted that technology to cool a seperate water circuit. Its much more sophisticated than a swamp cool.

[@comatose3788]

GenZ logic ... totally ridiculous.

[@jk9876]

WTF? Canada, stop BBQ then.

[@nathanglessing9010]

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 😂

[@BrentAllen99]

This video did a poor job of explaining why it takes soooo much drinking water to run AI. I usually enjoy your show but this one was missing a lot of important facts regarding the cooling systems and drinking water connection. I hope the next episode is better.

[@beyondfossil]

True we do need to think about datacenter water usage. But all the water for cooling for servers still pales in comparison to the water needed to cool thermal (coal, natural gas) and nuclear power plants which are used everywhere. Those power plants all run using steam to drive mechanical turbines with temperatures far exceeding water boiling temp (100℃). Then it all requires massive backend cooling (in condensers) so that the steam can return back to water to complete the cycle. Get rid of those power plants and we'll have the water budget back again and then some. Furthermore, a large datacenter power requirements may be in the 25MW to 50MW (megawatt) range. But a single natural gas or coal power plant is many hundreds to a thousand megawatts in size. Nuclear power plants are in GW (gigawatt) range. Datacenters could also switch to using geo-thermal cooling which requires much less water since its so naturally cold in the ground with very high heat capacity because its the Earth's crust.

[@nicholasborkowski3589]

Isn't the water in a closed loop system and not being lost?

[@DaveBuildsThings]

The cooling loop is closed. The heat gets transferred from the closed loop to an open loop that is evaporated to expel the heat from the closed loop in the cooling towers.