2 years ago

Category: Software, Business, Data, Microsoft, Cloud, Infrastructure, artificial-intelligence

In yet another step toward running its operations entirely on carbon-free energy sources by 2030, Google is now deploying machine learning technology that will help automatically shift workloads between data centers, depending on the availability of renewable energy resources, which can vary by type, location or the time of day. The move is part of Google’s plan to transition to what it calls Carbon-Intelligent Compute Management, a system that will use artificial intelligence to automatically maximize clean electricity use across their data centers — and therefore minimize the carbon footprint and operational costs. The system functions by delaying non-urgent workloads that aren’t time-sensitive, such as encoding and analyzing videos that are uploaded to YouTube, or processing images that are uploaded to Google Photos and Drive.

Data centers account for 1% of worldwide electricity use, a proportion that has not only doubled during the last decade, but is continuing to grow. Google’s goal is to leverage machine learning to automatically reduce the overall amount of carbon that is currently being emitted by the company’s massive fleet of computers, while taking into account the carbon intensity of the power sources used and their predicted availability so that time-flexible workloads can be shifted to hours where more “green” energy is available.