Things Have Changed

How Data Centers Are Guzzling up the World’s Electricity - with Dr. Bharath Ramakrishnan

October 30, 2022 Things Have Changed Season 16 Episode 4
Things Have Changed
How Data Centers Are Guzzling up the World’s Electricity - with Dr. Bharath Ramakrishnan
Show Notes Chapter Markers

Whether you’re streaming "House of the Dragon" on HBO or just chatting with your friends on Whatsapp, both cause a chain reaction and use energy. Today nearly all the world's Internet traffic goes through data centers or DCs for short. and it all the crazy things we do on the internet from cloud computing, AI, self driving to streaming your favourite shows on Netflix.

There are big costs to running these massive servers! These DCs, need a huuuuge amount of electricity to run their equipment and make the internet that we use possible. They also need a lot of it to keep the machines cool. 

Research shows that DCs consume close to 1% of the worlds electricity consumption!If DCs were a country, it would be the 3rd biggest electricity consuming nation, just behind the 2 biggest economies today in the US & China! And that is staggering! All those memes you share with your friends is consuming so much energy.

In this episode, we continue our cloud series conversations with Bharath Ramakrishnan, Senior Thermal Engineer at Microsoft. Bharath understands the technology of data centers intimately and at the same time, is working to answer the question: “What’s the best way to keep Data Centers ‘Cool’?”


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Things Have Changed

(Cont.) How Data Centers Are Guzzling up the World’s Electricity - with Dr. Bharath Ramakrishnan