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Artificial intelligence is now directly controlling cooling at Google data centers

In Android 9 Pie, Alphabet’s DeepMind division is responsible for machine learning features like Adaptive Battery and Brightness. One of the first collaborations between the two companies was an AI system tasked with increasing energy efficiency at Google’s data centers. Two years later, an AI has been granted direct control over cooling these servers.


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Google offers a VR tour of a data center, 360° view in Cardboard, mobile & desktop Chrome

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Very few people are allowed inside one of Google’s data centers, but you can at least take a virtual tour thanks to a 360° video. We should warn that the narration is basically just one extended plug for the company’s technology, but it’s fun to take a look around.

The 360° view is available on both mobile and desktop platforms …


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Google uses artificial intelligence to boost efficiency of its data centers

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Google has been using artificial intelligence for a wide range of tasks, ranging from delivering search results to speech recognition, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Google’s latest AI product was figuring out how to improve the energy efficiency of the very servers used to do all that other stuff.

A Google blog entry spotted by Engadget describes how a Google engineer used his 20 percent time to apply machine learning to predict the real-time energy efficiency of its data centers. Google uses a measure known as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE): a ratio of total power used to power actually used for computing. In simple terms, if cooling used as much power as computing, the PUE would be 2. The closer to 1 Google can get, the more efficient the energy usage.

Google has already got its PUE down to 1.12 – about twice as efficient as a typical data center – but is using the AI project to try to further reduce the number. By using machine learning to predict the impact of variables like outside air temperature, Google can tweak the setup to minimize power usage.

The days of self-aware machines grow ever closer …

Google inks a 407 MW wind energy deal with MidAmerican Energy for its Iowa data center

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If it feels like a lot of major corporations are going green, it could have something to do with today being Earth Day and of course Google is joining in on the eco-friendly festivities. Sure, the company is fighting poachers and helping nonprofit organizations, but what about its own backyard? Earlier today, the folks in Mountain View announced a new deal with MidAmerican Energy that will supply its Iowa data center with up to 407 megawatts of 100 percent renewable wind energy.


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