Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s Post

Gavin Patterson was featured on GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign's "Heard on the Street" this past week, talking about leveraging smart data to better the planet 🌍 : 💡 “Over the last few years, I’ve seen the United Kingdom become a pivotal testing ground for this early grid transformation. We’ll only see more of this as utilities across Europe, Asia, and North America continue to turn to the UK for its technology solutions that digitize and decentralize the grid at scale." Check out more of Gavin's commentary below! #UnicornKingdom #energytransition #gridtransformation #energytech #netzero

"Data is the new oil" – I've heard this phrase countless times over the past few years. While it's true from a technological standpoint, I'm increasingly concerned about its environmental implications. Large data centers are popping up everywhere to meet the growing data and processing needs of companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, XAI, Google, and us, the end users. Unfortunately, this expansion is starting to take a toll on local ecosystems. It’s frustrating to see that our advancements in electrical engineering, particularly in microchips and hardware, haven't kept pace with the rapid progress in software engineering. Aside from NVIDIA's AI chip, there hasn't been much noteworthy news in hardware. Yet, new software advancements in Generative AI, LLMs, and tools like ChatGPT demand a lot of storage and processing power, worsening the environmental strain. I recently read a couple of disheartening news. 1. https://lnkd.in/eqjSDnt3 : Google's emissions have surged by 48% in the last five years due to AI, which is alarming. 2. https://lnkd.in/eyX6PN9k : Another blow came with the announcement that Microsoft is discontinuing Project Natick, their underwater data center project. I had high hopes for this initiative as a step towards sustainability, and it's disappointing to see it shelved. Despite these setbacks, I believe tech companies must continue exploring and investing in sustainable alternatives. As an end user, I feel we all have a role to play. By adopting Green AI practices whenever possible and reserving more resource-intensive Red AI for essential needs, we can collectively help balance technological advancement with environmental responsibility. #sustainability #GreenAI #ESG #environment #datacentre

Google wanted to be net zero for carbon in 2030. Google's carbon usage has gone up 48% since 2019. AI searches are estimated to taken ten times the energy of a standard search. The logic displayed in attempting to justify is that AI will save energy. Just feels like boiling frogs discussing hot tub design https://lnkd.in/eCx48_J3

Google "is nowhere near meeting that [2030 carbon net-zero] goal. Rather than declining, its emissions grew 13% in 2023 over the year before. Compared to its baseline year of 2019, emissions have soared 48%. Google cited artificial intelligence and the demand it puts on data centers, which require massive amounts of electricity, for last year’s growth." #AI #climatechange #netzero #google https://lnkd.in/eF8_FY4t

This has been said many times, but it is worth repeating; whatever solution or portfolio of solutions we choose for our future energy needs, to replace fossil fuels, has to be able to generate multiple times the energy consumption we have today. This is not just because everyone on the planet has the equal right to enjoy abundant and reliable energy, not just people living in the "developed world", but also because progress almost invariably means finding new ways to consume energy. https://lnkd.in/d_Bqt9HE

In Google's latest environmental report released last week, it was revealed that the tech giant generated an estimated 14.3 million tCO2e in 2023, a 13% increase from 2022. The primary cause was AI’s growing energy demand. 📈 Since our technology, MIRS™, enables standby processing, pausing when the content is displayed before the next interaction, we can save power and cut costs. We aim to impact the power consumption of AI and other content being processed in servers. So technology can continue to advance, without greater environmental impact. 🌱 #AI #Xiris #Ecologicalcomputing #MIRS

Leading the way in responsible AI, Microsoft has joined forces with the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to accelerate scientific discovery for energy storage solutions—synthesizing a new material for resource efficient batteries in less than nine months.  This is the power of responsible AI. This is Microsoft empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.

This is a very good example of how it’s essential to maintain a sustainability/climate lens on your growth strategy. You can’t just plan for growth first and then work out how to meet climate targets afterwards… they need to be considered simultaneously. We’re starting to see companies make the painful realisation that meeting climate targets - particularly in Scole 3 - is *really* difficult. It’s going to be interesting to see what these companies’ responses are to this challenge. Will they knuckle down to meet targets, or will they find a way to water down legislation, regulation and voluntary target methodologies (naming no names on the latter!) #sustainability #climate #netzero #carbon

The latest announcement from Google is terrifying. "Google’s emissions climb nearly 50% in five years due to AI energy demand" I'd love to speak with experts in AI and sustainability who would like to share their thoughts on this and any solutions they think we as founders, businesses and employees can adopt to reduce the impact of AI's carbon footprint. This will be an interview on Give A Sh*t's platform. Please tag anyone you know below! https://lnkd.in/eyYuCajB #AI #CarbonEmissions #Sustiainability #SustainableBusiness

Due to the meteoric rise of AI, Google is emitting more, not less, than what it needs to meet its ambitious sustainability goals. And it’s not the only company struggling to meet the growing demands of AI in a sustainable way. “Using lots of resources for AI only makes sense if what we do with it improves human lives, equitably” - Amanda D. Smith Senior Scientist, Project Drawdown Read the full article in the AP: https://lnkd.in/ebf97mYP