Cloud sustainability is a funny topic. It’s like dental care; everyone agrees it’s important, but who wants to discuss the particulars? It’s much more fun to talk about the new “shiny keys” of IT: AI and its endless possibilities. Cloud sustainability is so five minutes ago. However, like dental care, ignoring the issues will not make them go away.
AI growth was limited this year by the AI chip shortage. With the chip issue resolved, AI will accelerate the sustainability crisis due to its demands on our power grids that will outpace supply. Fortunately, we’re not at that tipping point—yet.
Looking in the wrong places
In my podcast discussions and videos on cloud and sustainability, which are becoming more frequent due to the rise of generative AI in the cloud, people tend to focus primarily on data center topics such as power and server efficiency. We need to understand that the power production and consumption side of things is not where the most improvements can be made.