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Technology

Shifting where data is processed for AI can reduce environmental harm

A scheduling algorithm can help redistribute AI workloads among data centres to minimise the environmental impact on regions experiencing water shortages or fossil fuel pollution

By Jeremy Hsu

13 July 2023

Distributing AI projects across multiple data centres could make them more environment-friendly

Distributing AI projects across multiple data centres could make them more environmentally friendly

Nikada/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Large AIs can have a significant environmental impact because they rely on thousands of power-hungry computing servers housed within huge data centres. But the environmental damage could be reduced by better distributing the demands to different locations.

Such scheduling algorithms might lighten the AI workload on data centres in Arizona during summer droughts to reduce water-based cooling. It could also, in theory, favour a data centre region in Finland where , while minimising reliance on a Singapore…

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