ChatGPT Consumes 10x Energy Google Search

The typical energy consumption of a simple Google or Microsoft Bing search is not much, but considering there are hundreds of billions of searches daily, this number can add up quite quickly. Then, add Artificial Intelligence engines such as ChatGPT and your energy usage just increased ten-fold. Yes, 10 times as much as a routine online search.

This ever increasing use of online access is contributing to nearly 4% of all US electricity usage and this number is expected to more than double to 9% by 2030. And considering the US' aging power grid that is already overtaxed and experiencing annual brownouts and blackouts, not to mention the consumption of electricity by electric vehicles such as Tesla and Rivian , as a nation we are not yet prepared to handle a 10x energy consumption rate.

Data Centers

Everything we do is increasingly in the digital world of cloud computing and the internet highway. From Instagram to Netflix to SMS texting, we are all riding high on this highway and there's no end in sight.

谷歌 reported an increase of 48% in search activity over the past five years alone. And with the ever increasing use of artificial intelligence, data centers are expected to gobble up 1% of global electricity demand. This number is set to double in the next year. Two percent is approximately the carbon footprint of the entire global aviation industry for an entire year.

Innovative companies like Fervo Energy are drilling to the depths of over 12,000 feet into the Earth's crust and tapping into geo-energy, which unlike solar and wind, can be used 24 hours per day. CBS Mornings reported that the surging demand for energy in the U.S. is forecast to hit record-highs; part of this demand coming from the voracious consumption of energy by data centers across the nation.

微软 's Project Natick tested shipping-container sized data centers on the seafloor in 2015 on the premise that the natural cooling of the ocean is the perfect location for its data centers. Additionally, they also discovered that since there's no oxygen underwater, there's also no corrosion or humidity fluctuations.

What to do?

Well, we can certainly stop searching for silly cat videos, but we all know that'll never happen. So, we'll need to be more innovative than ever if we're going to solve this issue.

As Amazon Web Services (AWS) , Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud continue racing for global cloud-dominance, we'll need more innovative solutions like Fervo Energy and its geothermal solutions. But, we'll also need bipartisan legislation from members of Congress such as Cathy McMorris Rodgers , Jeff Duncan , U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor , and Representative Andy Levin.

Start your pens and write, email, text, or smoke-signal your nearest member of Congress and demand they do their job!

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #ML #GoogleSearch #EnergyConsumption #DataCenter Amazon Web Services (AWS) Rich Miller Yevgeniy Sverdlik James Glanz Katie Fehrenbacher Sebastian Moss Heather Clancy Stacey Higginbotham John Rath #BingSearch #climatechange James Roth