Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 60 | Page 57

CASE STUDY

“ We are honoured to continue our long-term partnership with Abu Dhabi Municipality . Data is the most valuable asset of any enterprise in our increasingly connected society . And by leveraging our storage and data centre solutions and fueling innovative industry development , Abu Dhabi Municipality will continue to safeguard its data , while also streamlining internal processes , enhancing service experience across all touchpoints , elevating customers experiences and contributing to achieving the Digital Transformation journey targets of UAE and UAE Vision 2021 ,” Ouyang added .

How AI helps Huawei build green data centres

Data centres are being overhauled , revamped and modernised to support Digital Transformation and the power-hungry cloud deployments they contain .

Artificial Intelligence is a key part of this overhaul as energy conservation – to address both cost and environmental concerns – becomes a top consideration for data centres . AI solutions are being deployed in the push to get data centres to become more energy efficient as well as safer and more reliable .

The growth in data traffic volumes shows no sign of letting up , nor does the global demand for high-performance computing . This comes with an increase in high-density servers , the use of graphics processing units and specialised AI processing chips , and all of these generate significantly more heat than traditional CPUs . It leads data centres then to require even more power to dissipate the heat they generate . It ’ s no surprise then that heat dissipation and energy management have become a vital topic for the data centre industry . infrastructure and address the energy consumption issue . The iCooling system incorporates Deep Learning to analyse historical data and identify key factors which affect energy consumption and create a PUE prediction . An optimisation algorithm then establishes the ideal parameters which are transmitted to various control systems .

At Huawei ’ s cloud data centre Langfang in North China , the deployment of iCooling has resulted in a PUE that is eight percent lower than it previously was , meaning a big saving in annual power costs . And at a China Mobile data centre in Ningxia the introduction of iCooling technology has reduced the data centre ’ s total energy consumption by 3.2 %, saving more than 400,000 kWh of electricity a year .

According to Huawei , as data centre loads increase and AI learning capability improves , six million kWh of electricity will be saved in the data centre every year , the equivalent to a reduction of about three million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide emissions .

While improved power management is a striking example of the value of AI to the data centre industry , Artificial Intelligence is proving hugely valuable in the management of data centres in other ways . It ’ s used to improve the safety and reliability of data centres .

Prior to the introduction of AI , fault detection would need to be done on a case by case basis , isolating the faulty component . By collecting information from the power supply and distribution systems , AI can predict impending device and component failure , warn operations and maintenance personnel , and furnish additional information to assist decision making .

Huawei ’ s iPower intelligent power supply and distribution technology , for example , can detect and isolate faults and then recover from them at sub-second speeds , improving the reliability of the data centre ’ s power infrastructure and reducing the risk of fire . iPower also accurately predicts battery life span and health , allowing preventative maintenance before any failure occurs .

Artificial Intelligence can also be used to in the data centre to reduce repetitive work and to monitor and manage fragmented resources which might otherwise easily be overlooked . Huawei ’ s iManager data centre infrastructure management system uses intelligent hardware and IoT sensors to manage power , cooling and space to optimise utilisation , with AI managing the allocation and operation of assets .

It ’ s estimated that iManager increases the resource utilisation rate by 20 %. iManager also supports network management , with centralised management for multiple data centres across different locations . As edge data centres increase in popularity , iManager can be used to reduce the need for site visits , thus improving the efficiency of data centre management .

Research from the McKinsey Global Institute finds that AI has the potential to add about US $ 13 trillion to global economic activity by 2030 , and to boost global GDP by 1.2 % a year . AI is spurring profound and potentially disruptive changes in the world , and data centres are no exception .

The use of AI is leading to safer , more reliable , energy efficient and cleaner data centres . And with the data centre industry forecast to grow by as much as 15 % over the next five years , according to M Capital Group , this can only be a good thing . •

A data centre ’ s power usage effectiveness , or PUE , is seen as a key indicator for evaluating its energy efficiency . The PUE value rises as the data centre becomes less efficient . Huawei ’ s cloud data centre in Ulanqab , for example , achieves an annual PUE as low as 1.15 , and is seen as a good example of how green data centres should be built .

Huawei has leveraged Machine Learning to develop its iCooling intelligent thermal management solution for data centre

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