Server Processors in the AI Era: Can They Go Greener?

Avi Messica and Ziv Leshem (NeoLogic)
EETimes (November 9, 2023)

The more power-efficient they get, the more the data center’s workload pulls them back to a more distant starting point.

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) says in “The Godfather Part III.” Much the same might be said of server processors: The more powerful and power-efficient they get, the more the data center’s workload pulls them back to a more distant starting point.

As data centers continue to expand in scale, complexity and connectivity, their power consumption increases as well. According to the International Energy Agency, data centers and data transmission networks are responsible for 1% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The estimated global data center electricity consumption in 2022 was 240 TWh to 340 TWh, or about 1% to 1.3% of global electricity consumption, excluding energy that was spent for cryptocurrency mining.1 According to some sources, it reaches 3% and tops industries like aviation, shipping, and food and tobacco.

Despite great efforts to improve processors’ efficiency, the rapid growth of AI workloads has resulted in a substantial increase in energy consumption over the past decade, growing by 20% to 40% annually. The combined electricity consumption of the Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta clouds has more than doubled between 2017 and 2021, rising to about 72 TWh in 2021.1

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