FEATURE: GREEN ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY
By helping African enterprises to meet regulatory requirements,
IT providers are positioning themselves as essential partners in the transition to a sustainable digital economy. For IT providers, this means embedding sustainability into every aspect of their delivery model, from open-source energyefficient frameworks to designing AI-as-a-Service platforms powered by renewables, explains Vishal Barapatre at In2IT Technologies. to the cloud. This substantial energy consumption contributes significantly to carbon emissions, often relying heavily on fossil fuels to power these facilities.
The carbon footprint of data centres is now comparable to that of the aviation industry, raising concerns about their impact on climate change. Furthermore, these facilities often rely on extensive cooling systems to prevent overheating, which consumes vast amounts of water and contributes to potential water pollution.
Aging hardware also contributes to the problem of generating electronic waste, a growing concern globally, particularly in regions like South Africa, where improper disposal can lead to environmental contamination and ecosystem damage. Legacy systems, therefore, present a multifaceted environmental challenge that demands innovative solutions.
The digital age’ s insatiable demand for computing power has collided with an urgent and pressing need for sustainability. As data centres and AI workloads consume unprecedented energy, IT providers are pivotal in redefining how technology intersects with environmental stewardship. From optimising algorithms to reimagining infrastructure, the path to energyefficient computing is both a technical challenge and a strategic imperative, especially in markets like South Africa, where energy constraints and sustainability goals converge.
Traditional computing infrastructure presents a significant environmental challenge. Data centres, the backbone of the digital economy, consume an estimated 1 – 1.3 % of global electricity, a figure projected to double by 2026 as AI adoption accelerates and more businesses move their data and operations
The exponential growth of Artificial Intelligence further intensifies the strain on energy resources. Training a single, large machine learning model can emit as much CO 2 as five cars produce over their lifetimes. This highlights the substantial energy requirements of developing and deploying complex AI algorithms.
However, the good news is that AI itself offers a potential path toward more sustainable computing. Energy-efficient techniques like model pruning, trimming redundant neural networks to reduce computational complexity and quantisation, reducing the precision of data used in calculations can slash computational demands by up to 50 % without significantly sacrificing accuracy.
IT providers are increasingly deploying these and other innovative strategies to help their clients balance the ever-growing demand for performance with the critical need for sustainability. They are helping businesses optimise their AI workloads to minimise energy consumption while achieving their desired outcomes, offering a beacon of hope in the quest for sustainable computing.
Sustainable balance between innovation and environment
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