ST Nov-Dec 2023

Adsignal 28.qxd 01-Dec-23 11:05 AM Page 2
ANALYSIS:
ANALYSIS: CONTENT GROWTH
af
IS AI MAKING TECH EVEN LESS
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY?
TOM DUNNING, CEO OF AD SIGNAL, LOOKS AT THE POTENTIAL
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF RELENTLESS CONTENT GROWTH
The amount of digital data in the world is
growing by 23 per cent year on year
and, as a result, is quickly becoming a
serious environmental issue. Crucially, many
people are unaware that this is even an issue
at all.
At any point in time the world is only using 20
per cent of the available capacity, yet
organisations continue to provision more
capacity, partly due to the concern over limited
availability driven by rarity of resources.
Backup upon backup is created of each item
of content so that each organisation in the
chain can meet Service Level Agreements
(SLAs) and Disaster Recovery (DR)
requirements; multiply this by the rapid growth
of social content and the number of
photos/videos people now take for each shot
they use. Streaming services continue to grow
in viewership and offer an ever-increasing
library of content.
We are collectively stumbling down a path of
environmental damage that will grow
exponentially unless we take immediate action.
THE DANGER OF RISING DATA
We're living in an era of rapid technological
development and it's unreasonable to expect
people and businesses to stop innovating, stop
adopting, and stop using technology
altogether in order to reduce the carbon
emissions caused by rising data.
The key, therefore, is to find solutions that can
scale the reduction of carbon emissions of
data alongside the growth of data content.
Over 3.5 per cent of global CO2 emissions
are estimated to be generated by data centres
and network traffic. This makes network traffic
responsible for even more CO2 emissions
than the global aviation industry (2.1 per
cent).
That figure is a significant issue, and one
made even worse by predictions that data
centres will generate 14 per cent of global
CO2 emissions by 2040, comparable to the
agricultural industry.
Businesses and large organisations in
particular are taking data and technology for
granted, focusing on how they can leverage it
to boost efficiency and generate bigger
profits. All the time this is happening, data
volumes are rising, and network traffic is
increasing with little to no thought from the
people doing the damage.
Video storage is a particular
environmental danger, accounting for an
estimated 70 per cent of the CO2 emissions
generated by data centres. It's the densest
content format that we have and equates to
roughly 1.84 per cent of the world's CO2
emissions.
Ultimately there are only three ways to
reduce the carbon related to content storage:
1. Reduce file sizes - normally through
compression rather than reduced quality
2. Store less - challenging as content grows
3. Store it on more sustainable solutions
In reality, a high volume of the large video
storage comes from duplicated versions, many
of which producers struggle to identify. As a
result, content producers and holders can
have a huge impact on emissions reduction
just by de-duplicating high volumes of video
storage. One UK broadcaster is holding 127
versions of the same episode but only around
20 of these are unique needed versions.
The technology to achieve this is already out
in the marketplace, solutions like Ad Signal's
Match and Compose products can reduce
emissions down from 1.84 to 0.5 per cent, for
example, while also making it commercially
beneficial to do so by reducing the storage
and data transfer burden of duplicated videos.
Video is the low hanging fruit; it isn't feasible
for industries like aviation to make such a
drastic reduction.
HOW 'AI WILL BURN THE WORLD'
The biggest threat to sustainability across the
board is AI. AI has seen rapid adoption across
the world this year, whether it be businesses
utilising large language models (LLMs) such as
ChatGPT to drive efficiencies or generating
data to understand the content and its
potential usage. However, there is an
enormous environmental cost associated with
AI that's only increasing alongside adoption.
While businesses and people have seen
benefits from AI, the components that power
it, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs),
require carbon-heavy materials to produce.
Alongside that, the powering of these
28 STORAGE Nov/Dec 2023
@STMagAndAwards
www.storagemagazine.co.uk
MAGAZINE