January 16, 2025
The GIST Editors' notes
This text has been reviewed in accordance with Science X's editorial course of and insurance policies. Editors have highlighted the next attributes whereas making certain the content material's credibility:
fact-checked
trusted supply
proofread
New information affords framework to measure AI's vitality consumption

Superior computing and knowledge facilities are large vitality shoppers. In reality, a latest report from Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory discovered that U.S. knowledge facilities consumed about 4.4% of complete electrical energy in 2023 and initiatives them to probably triple consumption by 2028. Widespread deployment of synthetic intelligence (AI) is a driving issue of this rise in vitality consumption and is already having an financial affect as electrical energy prices rise for shoppers.
Researchers on the Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory (NREL) are shining a lightweight on this energetic value of computing. Together with investigating strategies to make computing extra vitality environment friendly, researchers are working to disseminate instruments and insights past the analysis sphere to trade software program professionals.
A latest results of these efforts is "A Newbie's Information to Energy and Vitality Measurement and Estimation," a brand new NREL report developed in partnership with Intel that outlines key issues for machine studying builders and practitioners in search of to make use of vitality measurement instruments and interpret vitality estimates.
"With AI enjoying a rising position in each analysis and trade, its growing affect on vitality consumption has turn into a shared problem we will sort out collectively," mentioned Hilary Egan, knowledge scientist and lead NREL writer on the report. "By way of this information, we wished to offer AI professionals with an introduction to vitality estimation that opens the door to extra sustainable decision-making in computing."
Taking AIm: Partnering to handle AI's vitality use problem
NREL's dedication to lowering computing's—and AI's—vitality consumption impressed the launch of the Joint Institute for Strategic Vitality Evaluation (JISEA) Inexperienced Computing Catalyzer in 2022. The Inexperienced Computing Catalyzer is one arm of JISEA's Catalyzer Program exploring strategic areas for funding in future vitality alternatives and brings collectively researchers, universities, and trade companions to investigate pathways to scale back computing's vitality affect.
Over its tenure, the Inexperienced Computing Catalyzer has supported efforts to quantify and catalog the energetic prices of machine studying and NREL's superior computing programs, with the purpose of offering a way for extra transparency and accountability in computing. These efforts caught the eye of Intel, which leads its personal assortment of Accountable AI initiatives.
Collectively, the Inexperienced Computing Catalyzer and Intel developed "A Newbie's Information to Energy and Vitality Measurement and Estimation," aiming to equip builders with the abilities they should conduct productive vitality measurement of their computing. This enables builders and their corporations to make knowledgeable selections in regards to the sustainability of their programs.
"Sustainability has been a longstanding precedence at Intel, each earlier than the arrival of AI and now," mentioned Ronak Singhal, senior fellow within the Datacenter and AI group at Intel. "NREL's contributions had been essential in bringing to life our shared publication, which equips builders with the abilities to make clever measurement selections—a significant first step on the street in the direction of sustainability in AI."
Shaping a measurement framework for AI's vitality utilization
Whereas some AI/machine-learning builders and cloud corporations are starting to include vitality issues into the event of their varied fashions, there is no such thing as a uniform customary framework for measuring vitality use throughout all computational ranges. The brand new information serves as a useful useful resource to make vitality effectivity instruments and procedures extra accessible, whereas establishing a framework for measuring vitality on the system, job, software, and code ranges.
The report affords a roadmap for figuring out computing's vitality utilization from each {hardware} and software program views and discusses the challenges of deciphering these measurements as helpful estimates. It additionally accommodates sensible ideas and real-world situations that illustrate the appliance of various vitality issues that can be utilized throughout the computing trade.
Practitioners utilizing the information will begin at the start of the vitality mission measurement workflow: figuring out the important thing inquiries to reply. The information then walks by tips on how to decide the suitable and possible measurement instruments to assemble the info that then should be analyzed and interpreted. Lastly, the roadmap helps practitioners and their corporations decide the sufficiency of the evaluation, which can result in refinement of questions and measurements.
Total, the report gives measurement, evaluation, and interpretation steerage from the system stage—how a set of workloads impacts vitality utilization—to the code stage—quantifying the vitality consumed by elements of a job or software.
"The Catalyzer Program addresses vital, intersectional vitality challenges," mentioned NREL's Kristin Wegner Guilfoyle, Catalyzer Program lead. "This roadmap helps obtain that purpose by connecting the progress made by energy-efficient computing researchers with the improvements pushed by software program builders and practitioners."
Extra info: A Newbie's Information to Energy and Vitality Measurement and Estimation for Computing and Machine Studying. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy25osti/91518.pdf
Offered by Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory Quotation: New information affords framework to measure AI's vitality consumption (2025, January 16) retrieved 16 January 2025 from https://techxplore.com/information/2025-01-framework-ai-energy-consumption.html This doc is topic to copyright. Aside from any honest dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for info functions solely.
Discover additional
Eager about the rise of brain-inspired computing shares
Feedback to editors
