(Frankfurt a. M., 24.10.2024) Artificial intelligence (AI) has now arrived in all areas of life. The use of this technology continues to increase and with it, the amount of data is exploding – the power demand in data centers is rising. The VDE, the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies, sees this as an enormous challenge for the future.
“In the interest of digital sovereignty and economic resilience, sensitive data and applications must be stored and processed securely and reliably,” says Dr. Damian Dudek, managing director of the Information Technology Society within VDE (VDE ITG). Both the training of AI systems and their operation require large amounts of energy. When a user sends a request to ChatGPT, it consumes an estimated three to nine watt-hours. If all of the nine billion daily searches were answered by AI, electricity consumption would increase by a factor of 30.
How can the problem be solved? In the future, data channels that support transmission speeds of up to 400 gigabits per second over a single laser wavelength in a fiber optic cable will be required. To process these data transmission rates in a more energy-efficient way, alternatives to conventional integrated digital circuits must be addressed, for example, through integrated silicon photonics-electronics circuits, so-called photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
This is because the use of integrated photonics could reduce energy consumption in data centers. In addition, data can be transmitted in higher bandwidths in the high-frequency spectrum of light. Furthermore, losses due to heat dissipation in photonic circuits are lower, which leads to higher energy efficiency. This is because PICs generate less heat than electrical components and thus relieve the cooling system. “Photonic technologies could play a key role in reducing the energy requirements of data centers while meeting the growing demands for speed and computing power,” says Dr. Matthias Wirth, Project Manager Innovation at VDE. ”In particular, integrated photonics are increasingly being used in the field of high-performance computing. We expect these solutions to become the industry standard in the near future.”
