DM Nov-Dec 2023

Dm ANALYSIS: CONTENT GROWTH
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.
20
@DMMagAndAwards
November/December 2023
www.document-manager.com