Thomas BabychanIn the latest development from the world of Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft and Meta began testing a new Artificial intelligence system. It will assist data centre operators to manage it.
Artificial intelligence collects and analyses data from various data centres and informs operators regarding any possible security or safety issues.
Microsoft and Meta have already begun testing their AI systems, which will help them manage their large data centres across the world.
According to a Microsoft spokesperson. Even though the initiatives are in their testing stage, they might enter into production by the end of the current year.
Meta said they are also researching upon ways to reduce human interference in extreme work conditions using AI. According to the company, they are developing prototype physical models to simulate extreme working conditions. Later, the data from the model is passed onto AI.
Artificial Intelligence is supposed to optimize power consumption, cooling and into airflow across servers while staying in an extreme environment.
Working in data centres are hectic and hazardous job as they have electrical equipment which is energised at various levels of energy. Servers which operate in heavy loads need water w]to cool down their system. The water which runs through its cooling system is sterilized.
Sterilization of water is done using Chlorine. While working in data centres to maintain or construct servers, workers get exposed to this chlorine for a long amount of time.
Five people working in the Apple data centre in North Carolina were taken to hospital in 2015 due to a gas leak at the data centre.
Even though data centres are safer than they used to be now, tech giants are always researching and developing new solutions. It is to prevent any future accidents or safety incidents.
Meta currently studying how to reduce the amount of air pumped into the server cooling system. As of now, most of the air used for cooling is extracted from the outside atmosphere.
Microsoft has already launched an AI that analyses data from electrical and mechanical devices. Data can then be used to understand and forecast issues regarding water levels and power outages.
According to Meta’s spokesperson, the company have data centres where servers of different sizes and workloads operate. These servers have different power needs, and the amount of heat output and airflow needed are also different.
“Our [infrastructure] team collects all the data from each server and then develops AI models which can allocate our servers and racks in the data centres and send workloads into these servers to optimize [for] performance and efficiency.” — Meta said.
Data centres around the world
According to Statista report, there are more than 2751 data centres in the USA alone. Followed by 484 in Germany, 458 in UK and 447 in China. Out of this, Meta has more than 20 data centres in operation. Meta is also coming up with data centres in Texas and Missouri which costs $1.6 billion in combined cost.
As of now, Microsoft manages more than 200 data centres around the world.