- Meta is building a new $9 billion AI data center in Canada.
- This data center will consume as much electricity as 8 lakh houses.
- Environmentalists have expressed serious concern over excessive electricity consumption.
- Data center power consumption is projected to double by 2030.
Meta Data Centre: After the AI boom, companies have started emphasizing on data centers. AI requires huge computing power, for which it has become necessary to build data centers to house huge servers. Now Meta is building a new AI data center in Canada, which will cost more than $9 billion. This data center to be built in Alberta will consume electricity equal to 8 lakh houses. That means this data center alone will consume electricity equal to that of a big city.
Meta is building the first data center in Canada
This is the first time that Meta is building its data center in Canada. With this the total number of data centers of the company will become 33. The initial capacity of the data center being built in Canada has been kept at 1 GW, which can later be increased to 1.8 GW. There were many reasons behind choosing Alberta for the data centre. There is adequate supply of natural gas here and the cost of energy is also low compared to other areas. The temperature here also remains low, due to which the money spent on cooling large data centers can be saved.
Discussion regarding electricity consumption
The thing that is being discussed the most about this project is the electricity consumption. Meta itself has told that this data center will require electricity equal to 8 lakh houses. For this, the company has said that it will bear the cost of power generation and upgrading the electricity grid. Meta’s opposition has also started regarding this project. People working for the environment say that the ever-expanding AI infrastructure is putting pressure on natural resources. Let us tell you that along with electricity, the data center also requires a large amount of water. Recently, Amazon reported that its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water last year.
The need for electricity will continue to increase
With the growth of AI data centers, the need for water and electricity will also increase. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that by 2030, data centers around the world will need about 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity every year. This is more than the total electricity consumption of Japan. This consumption will be double compared to today.
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