Google goes greener: How AI helps Google conserve energy
Korean grandmaster Lee Sedo suffered defeat in Go 鈥� a 2,500 year old game exponentially more complicated than chess 鈥� at the hands of Google鈥檚 Artificial Intelligence program in March.
That same technology is now conserving power at a handful of聽Google data centers, slashing the energy bills for cooling聽by .
The achievement opens the horizon for energy efficiency gains in , all thanks to an artificially intelligent system that can master any pattern, whether on a game board or in a heating and cooling system.
DeepMind uses "deep learning," recognizing patterns in large data sets, to analyze information from thousands of sensors measuring temperature and power usage in each data center. Google鈥檚 data centers support Google Search, Gmail, and Youtube, generating high levels of heat that must be removed in order to keep the servers running.
The 40 percent drop in cooling costs corresponds to a 15 percent improvement in power usage efficiency, Google said in a statement.
"We're really ," Mustafa Suleyman, who leads applied AI at Google DeepMind, told CNN Money.
The AI has also spotted gaps in its coverage and will instruct Google on where to install more sensors to further increase its effectiveness.
All of Google鈥檚 data centers will employ the system by the end of the year. The energy savings potential in data centers alone is huge, since according to some estimates, they account for .
And artificial intelligence can bring about even more energy-saving in other areas as well.
DeepMind will within the next six weeks, so that manufacturing facilities and even national energy grids can also take advantage of the energy-saving system, the BBC reported.
