Google cuts energy usage in data centers with DeepMind's AI

Google's been finding ways to save the planet and keep things green for the best part of a decade.

In its latest environmentally conscious venture, the company has partnered up with Google Deepmind to implement a system that reduces data center cooling bills and overall energy consumption.

By applying artificial intelligence (AI), the company claims it has reduced the amount of energy it uses for data center cooling by almost 40%.

The company tested its model by deploying it on a live data center. This graph shows a typical day of testing and includes the machine learning recommendations turning both on and off.

"Using a system of neural networks trained on different operating scenarios and parameters within our data centers, we created a more efficient and adaptive framework to understand data center dynamics and optimize efficiency," a company blog read.

"Our machine learning system was able to consistently achieve a 40 percent reduction in the amount of energy used for cooling, which equates to a 15 percent reduction in overall PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) overhead after accounting for electrical losses and other non-cooling inefficiencies. It also produced the lowest PUE the site had ever seen."

Google also states that it uses only 50% of the energy of most other data centers. Compared to five years ago, it's now getting around 3.5 times the computing power out of the same amount of energy.

The company aims to eventually roll out this system on a broader scale so that other data centers - and ultimately the environment - will reap the rewards.