Google Slashed Its Energy Bill by Putting AI in Charge
Google's AI isn't just crushing human go players anymore. DeepMind now is control of its server rooms.
Google tasked the AI with controlling some of the tasks in its server rooms, like cooling and server usage, to try and reduce power consumption. Bloomberg reports that the company has cut costs by several percent this way, which will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in savings over several years.
DeepMind's server software is similar to the software that the company programmed to play a number of old Atari games, and in a sense, the problem is similar. The AI is programmed to maximize its "score" by using the least amount of power. It controls about 120 different variables, like fan speeds and window openings, to try and reduce power usage by as much as possible.
Google's servers use a truly staggering amount of power. Google has said it used about 4.4 TWh of electricity in 2014, equivalent to about 3.6 million homes. Back in 2014, Google announced it was using neural networks to predict energy usage and to help with arranging equipment. Employing DeepMind's AI goes a step further and allows AI direct control over the minute-by-minute fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
The people behind DeepMind plan to install additional sensors to give the AI even more control over parts of its data centers. With the electricity savings that Google gets, the company's $600 million purchase of DeepMind could pay for itself in a few years. And then, Skynet, probably.
Source: Bloomberg
