KHALED AL KHAWALDEH (ABU DHABI)

As the UAE's AI industry booms, the demand for local data centres, the engine rooms behind the algorithms, is skyrocketing.

Despite the economic opportunities, the rising cost on the water scarce environment is a challenge that remains unresolved.

However, companies in the UAE and from around the world are racing to find and implement innovations that will ensure the ascendency of AI does not come at the cost of sustainability.

"Data centres are responsible for two to three percent of the energy consumption worldwide. With the development of AI, we're speaking about $320 billion of business coming from AI that will double the size of the data centre business in the next few years," Mouna Essa-Egh, VP Middle East & Africa for Schneider Electrics Secure Power and Data Centre Divisions, told Aletihad.

"If we do nothing, that will be really very bad for our environment; frankly speaking I think we have no choice but to change."

Goldman Sachs predicts that energy consumption from data centres will grow by 160 percent, largely due to the energy intensiveness of AI applications compared to that of traditional cloud apps.

The same report found that the average ChatGPT query used 10 times more energy than a google search, and some preliminary studies by scientists in the US have found that 20-50 questions with the AI chatbot in a single system may use up to 500ml of water.

With these issues only exacerbated by the intense weather of the Arabian Gulf, Essa-Egh said the rising demand in the region needs to be met with innovative solutions that lower the environmental footprint.

One way that the France-based Schneider Electric is doing this is by changing the way the centres are cooled.

"What is important is that the machine has to work at a certain temperature. So you have to maintain this temperature, either through chillers or fan wall, but now because of AI the server racks have to be more dense for additional computing power, and this high density obliges to change the type of cooling," Essa-Egh explained.

"So, we're moving away from the traditional chillers to liquid cooling, where we will refrigerate the chip itself, not anymore from the outside but by actually sending a liquid inside the server now to refresh it because of the high intensity of the workload," he noted.

Essa-Egh said direct cooling has already helped the company increase the efficiency of its centres by up to 30 percent, and coupled with more onsite renewables, data centres in the region can become more sustainable.

She also added that the company was working on a chiller that was able to use gas rather than water, eliminating the water consumption problem.

She explained that data centres could not be placed elsewhere where it is cooler due to the increased latency, which would result in poor performance.

Schneider is focusing on investments in local plants to manufacture prefabricated data centres that can be easily delivered and launched on site.

"The data centre business is growing 17 percent to 20 percent in the region. The demand is booming, both from generative AI, large language models, and also from usage of AI, in things like airports and everyday uses," she said.

"We need to improve efficiency first, and that's what we're doing through a lot of reviews and consultancies."

Last week, Schneider launched its first prefab facility in Sharjah, with a new factory expected to be launched in Abu Dhabi next week.

The company is betting on furthering its footprint in the rapidly growing space.

According to a report from research consultancy Knight Frank, the UAE's data centre market has grown substantially over the past few years and the country hosts the highest concentration of centres in the entire region.

The 2023 report found that over 46 percent of the market was dominated by Abu Dhabi-based data solutions company, Khazna.

At the GITEX summit last week, the company announced a new 100MW AI-optimised data centre in Ajman.

The massive new centre is expected to further the nation's readiness for AI.

The new centre is expected to incorporate the company's previously announced strategy of incorporating biofuel generators instead of diesel generators on site.

Coupled with better technology, and the proliferation of nuclear and renewable energy, the company is hoping to completely off-put their emissions.

"We expect notable reductions in carbon emissions as a result of this strategy adjustment, which perfectly complements Khazna's goal of establishing high standards for environmental responsibility within the data centre sector without compromising on operational reliance and efficiency," Hassan Alnaqbi, Chief Executive Officer at Khazna Data Centers, said in a statement.