Climate Crisis: The environmental cost of data as AI, 5G ramps up

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita joins The First Trade to discuss the ramifications of increased data on the overall environment.

Video transcript

- We're always looking to collect data in some form or another, whether it's trying to get an edge on a stock or taking pictures of your family so you don't forget precious memories. We're always on the lookout. But all that data is leading to soaring energy use. Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita is here with the latest installment in her series on climate change. Akiko.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, Brian. This is something that a lot of us, I think, can relate to, having our smartphones, having all that data on it. But we don't often think about the ramifications of that now. Whether it's AI or 5G, the amount of data that's created is expected to increase dramatically over the next several years. That's only going to exacerbate the challenges that tech companies already face-- how to reduce the carbon footprint of the data centers at a time when demand for those centers is only going to grow.

Think about all of the data you use-- your email, Facebook, photos, especially those you haven't touched in 10 years. Then there's everything on your smartphone, every Netflix show you binged. It all amounts to more than 33 zetabytes. That's right. Zetabytes, a number so vast it's roughly 45 times the amount of grains of sand on the earth. And by the way, that's expected to increase fivefold in the next five years.

DAVID CAPPUCCIO: It's dramatic. I mean, the amount of data created in the last year, year and a half, is more than we've collected aggregately over the last 50 years.

AKIKO FUJITA: Over the last 50 years?

DAVID CAPPUCCIO: It's unbelievable. Yeah. It's just growing exponentially.

AKIKO FUJITA: These data centers are the cloud that store everything. And it takes a lot of energy to cool these servers. Without air conditioning, temperatures can soar to 108 degrees here. But all of the electricity comes at a cost-- 3% of the world's energy, to be exact. That means a lot of pollution, putting tech on par with the airline industry in the amount of CO2 gas it releases.

ADAM KRAMER: Everything that's happening on the internet requires some energy to generate the data, to capture the data, to store the data, to compute the data, to push the data back out.

AKIKO FUJITA: At Switch in Las Vegas, construction crews haven't stopped building out its data center since 2007. It's one of the largest in the world, at three and a half million square feet.

ADAM KRAMER: As we are creating and generating more data and we have more and more need for servers, it's creating a need for more and more power.

AKIKO FUJITA: How do you keep these servers cool?

That's forced them to rethink how they source energy. This location in the Nevada desert is powered by solar panels that generate enough electricity to keep the lights on in 22,000 homes, making Switch 100% renewable.

But they're not the only ones moving towards greener solutions. Google's using machine learning to reduce its energy usage. Amazon, the largest cloud provider, is investing in wind and solar farms. Microsoft taking its data solutions to extremes unveiling its first underwater data center powered by tidal energy and onshore wind turbines.

But David Cappuccio says those efforts aren't happening fast enough because the type of data we collect is becoming more sophisticated. Think artificial intelligence and 5G. All those things that make your life easier also come with an environmental cost.

DAVID CAPPUCCIO: We're still doing the old email and the old style compute, but all this new stuff. Everything requires some analytics or machine learning. That takes a whole different type of compute, uses a lot more processing power. Therefore, it generates a lot more energy and a lot more power, a lot more heat.

AKIKO FUJITA: And that complicates the path to a sustainable solution. Cappuccio says the responsibility isn't just on the tech companies anymore. Consumers need to educate themselves about their carbon footprint, though he admits reducing that data trail may be the biggest challenge.

DAVID CAPPUCCIO: The genie is out of the bottle. I mean, how do you get people to stop using social media? How do you get people to stop automating more and more of their homes? How do you get people to stop using Alexa? People fall in love with technology. And what they fall in love with is how easy it is to use. It's almost like turning on tap water now.

AKIKO FUJITA: --finds that some of those steps we talked about that companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon have taken to reduce their carbon footprint is having an effect. A recent study that was published in the "Journal of Science" found that the compute capacity of data centers grew sixfold between 2018 and 2010, but energy usage only grew at 6%. So relatively, that is fairly stable. Having said that, you heard David Cappuccio from Gartner there saying that things are about to change dramatically because of AI, the internet of things-- 5G, and that means more and more data collection.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Just incredible--

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, Akiko, I think they--

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --when you think about-- sorry guys. When you think about, you know, how much we're using-- what-- just, you know, with all the data, you just don't-- you don't compute the two, right? But you've talked to so many people throughout this climate change series. I'd like to know, were you particularly impressed with one company or one place and how they are combating climate change?

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, you know, it's tough to single out because this is such a vast issue. But one of the things that was most glaring to me is what we're seeing on the local level and what private companies are doing to step up in the absence of leadership on a federal level, national level. In many ways, it's kind of the narrative we've talked about over the last two and a half months as it relates to the coronavirus. When you look at cities like Miami or places like California, they are having a conversation not just amongst each other, but on a global level to build out their own template because they feel they just can't wait for the national leadership to take hold.

And then you look at a company like a Google or Microsoft. You know, we were talking so much, even pre-COVID, about how many companies were stepping up to say, look, we're going to be carbon neutral. In the case of Microsoft, we're going to be carbon negative. Those commitments are still in place, and that's something that we'll want to look for increasingly as the onus shifts to sort of the local leaders and private sector in the absence of leadership.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, Akiko Fujita, really enjoyed this series. Thanks for bringing it to us.