AI knowledge facilities may ‘distort’ the US energy grid

The proliferation of information facilities geared toward assembly AI computing wants may very well be unhealthy information for the US energy grid, says a new report in Bloomberg.

Utilizing the million residential sensors tracked by Whisker Labs, in addition to enterprise intelligence knowledge from DC Byte, Bloomberg discovered that greater than half of the properties with the worst energy distortions stay inside 20 miles of an exercise vital a part of the information heart.

In different phrases, there seems to be a hyperlink between proximity to knowledge facilities and “unhealthy harmonics” – a time period for the less-than-ideal circulation {of electrical} energy in properties.

Bloomberg says this “distorted” energy may doubtlessly destroy plugged-in units, improve vulnerability to electrical fires, and even result in brownouts and blackouts. And AI knowledge facilities may very well be much more problematic as a consequence of their risky energy necessities.

“No community is designed to have the ability to deal with this sort of load fluctuation not only for one knowledge heart however for a number of knowledge facilities on the similar time,” stated Aman Joshi, chief business officer of Bloom Power.

A spokesperson for Commonwealth Edison of Chicago informed Bloomberg that the utility “strongly questions the accuracy and assumptions underlying Whisker Lab’s claims.”