Latest / Technology Now / Are we going to run out of power? | Karim Abou Zahab
Transcript
- SAM JARRELL Good morning, Michael. MICHAEL BIRD good morning, Sam. how are you doing? SAM JARRELL I am doing all right now that I have some coffee. MICHAEL BIRD Now, Sam, as always, I have a question for you. do you think you could go without Maine's electricity for one day? go full analog, if you will? SAM JARRELL For a day? Yes. For like multiple weeks. Absolutely not. What about you, do you think you could do it? MICHAEL BIRD Well, I live in very rural England, so I get power cuts quite a lot. Like a horse sort of sits on a power line or like a tractor knocks it over a power line or something. It happens all the time. So I have actually gone out, gone without power for 24 hours, I think I probably could. I think it'd be quite nice actually if I had a bit of notice. but anyway, Sam, you or I might not have to live without electricity ourselves, but with humanity's ever increasing demands for the stuff, working out how to budget it effectively and get the most out of what we have is becoming more important than ever. I'm Michael Bird. SAM JARRELL I'm Sam Jarrell MICHAEL BIRD And welcome to Technology Now from HPE. MICHAEL BIRD Modern day infrastructure loves energy. According to the Global Energy Review 2025 from the International Energy Agency – or the IEA -, which we will link to in the show notes (I think they know what they're talking about) data centres are estimated to have consumed 415 terawatt hours of electricity in 2024. That was 1.5% of the entire global electricity consumption. SAM JARRELL Oh my. That sounds like it could make for quite the light show And we are building more and more data centres right... MICHAEL BIRD Yeah exactly. In fact, by 2030, the IEA expects this figure to have doubled. Technology is advancing at an increasing pace, but it’s now starting to come up against the physical constraints of just how much energy we can produce. SAM JARRELL Right, and I don’t know about you, Michael, but I’m also seeing energy prices going up at the moment so I would imagine this is leading to some tough questions when it comes to finance for this sort of project... MICHAEL BIRD Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of my energy bill at the moment. but yeah, very much so. Whether the electricity is coming from renewables, oil, gas or even nuclear, the soaring demand on our power grids are starting to cause problems for organisations. So, to find out more about how organisations and businesses can try to respond to these changes, I met with Karim Abou Zahab, a principal technologist in the sustainable transformation team in the Wider Living Progress Organisation here at HPE and the first thing I wanted to know was, from his perspective, why is energy such a hot topic at the moment? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB energy has been a topic that has been coming up a lot in the past couple of months to couple of years, and it's, if I can summarize it in a tiny sentence, I would say that under the current system that exists, companies need to have limitless growth to a certain extent. However, energy is not limitless. So the energy that we have currently in the world is quite limited, This topic has been coming up quite often. MICHAEL BIRD So, I guess what we're saying here… We're using more energy than we have potentially. KARIM ABOU ZAHAB Yeah, exactly. there's a. Very interesting, day that happens every year. it's called earth Overshoot. And Earth overshoot is basically when we as a planet. Utilize more resources in a year or in a certain time, then the planet can actually regenerate in that certain year. And that is causing a lot of issues, So there are a lot of sources that we can use to generate energy And the type and amount of energy that I'm using actually does not only affect from a carbon perspective, but it also affects from a price perspective. And this is something that organizations are really thinking about these days. MICHAEL BIRD So using less energy isn't necessarily a sort of green issue. It's, a financial issue as well, because, if you can lose less energy, you can spend less money doing the thing that you need to do with that energy. KARIM ABOU ZAHAB So if we're talking with folks from the industry and we're talking about carbon footprint, we're talking about emissions and so on, not everybody would be interested in having that conversation. But when we shift that into a topic about efficiency and we ask questions such as, would you like to reduce your energy footprint or energy bill by 10%? Nobody can actually say no to that. MICHAEL BIRD because it's basically then become a financial conversation. So, um, we live in a sort of post AI world. you know, with the explosion of AI alongside the, the quantity of data centers, the quantity of, GPUs in racks, there seems to be some sort of, disconnect. Like, you know, where is that energy coming from to be able to power those data centers? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB what we talk about right now in the industry, we're talking about the AI gold rush, right? Everybody's just running towards ai, trying to integrate AI in any single place in their organization. And in a lot of cases AI has become a solution looking for a problem. And basically what we're trying to talk about is that the data center industry does not only revolve around ai. So AI is the fastest growing part of data centers now. And the International Energy Agency said that AI currently. Uses 15% of the energy of the date centers. Now, AI is 15%. What about the other 85%? So we have 85% of our date centers doing what we call quote unquote normal IT. And yes, AI is very worthy to look at, especially when we're talking that the deployments are happening.and most of the AI deployments actually do not go and see production. And that is something that could be mitigated if we think in terms of efficiency from the design perspective, MICHAEL BIRD so there's an efficiency conversation there with regards to building data centers. Mm-hmm. Is there enough energy to go around? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB Very good question. Never. So basically in the current economy, there needs to be limitless growth, right? and energy as of now is not able to keep up with the demands of multiple industries. And when we're thinking about energy, we need to think about energy generation because that's the use of resources that we can allocate somewhere else. And again, this is where we actually think of. of What if there is not enough energy? So the wait times in order to jump on the grid to get electricity for data centers are huge. The wait times to get to renewable energy are even larger. So the question is. What can I do with the current capacity that I'm either given or currently have? And the answer is utilize it more efficiently, basically. MICHAEL BIRD And I guess the interesting thing about, data centers is that, You know, sort of viewed as more, more and more as, national critical infrastructure, So from, from an energy perspective, is, is keeping data centers powered similar to keeping up our comms networks and hospitals and things like that? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB I'm gonna just give you an example of something that happened in the past year actually in Spain. And we saw that there was a power cutoff throughout the country, and a lot of services that were deemed previously critical, were shut down, such as public transportation. So suddenly there was no public transportation anymore in Spain. So, we cannot really say that data centers are on par with critical hospital services, so to speak, but what is actually inside of a hospital? An actual date center. So almost every single hospital in the world now has a date center, has an IT department that is responsible for managing and operating the hospital, including What the patients have received also have, been going through basically their diagnostic. And hence, certain parts of the IT infrastructure or the IT estate have to be deemed critical by governments or organizations. MICHAEL BIRD Okay, so that leads quite nicely onto energy sovereignty, because, different countries get their energy from different locations, can you define what we mean by sovereignty? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB so basically when we're talking about energy sovereignty, and maybe to draw a parallel, So data sovereignty is me as the creator of that data, having ownership over that data and deciding where the data resides. And who gets to look at it how I'm going to use it, as well as the resiliency of that data. So when we're talking about energy, it's more or less the same conversation as you said, with the current geopolitical landscape all over the world, countries, organizations and companies are looking towards having more and more energy, sovereignty. That is energy responsibility that falls upon themselves. So. They're responsible for generating it. They're responsible for having the redundancy mechanisms in case we need a disaster recovery, and they're also responsible for maintaining it. MICHAEL BIRD would organizations generate their energy that's not connected to the grid particularly from that sovereignty perspective? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB it depends. This is our favorite answer in the team. It depends, right? A lot of data centers that do have a disaster recovery mechanism in place do have onsite generators, just like hospitals. So in case they fall off the grid for whatever reason, they can just prop up that backup generator almost instantly. It takes less than a second usually, and basically utilize that energy. However, now we have most countries that are importing gas, importing oil from other countries, we're seeing that also translate to renewable energy, disaster recovery, sources basically. So we're seeing more and more data centers, more and more organizations that are installing onsite renewable energy. as a disaster recovery, mechanism. MICHAEL BIRD because of course, like a, a generator, it isn't necessarily a long term solution. it's designed as a temporary solution. You still have to feed it oil or whatever. It's, that powers it. but presumably a solar and batteries, that could be a viable solution depending on where you are in the world. Probably in the UK not so much, but in countries with maybe more reliable sunlight, that could be like the primary source of energy and then maybe using the grid as, as like a backup. And you're seeing organizations doing that. KARIM ABOU ZAHAB it's funny you mentioned that because actually in the UK we've been seeing a lot of projects that are popping up that are requiring to have renewable energy sources on site in order to mitigate that,case, there's a need for disaster recovery. And that is why when we're talking to our customers, when we're talking about the efficiency of the resources that you're utilizing. One of the best ways to mitigate the carbon impact of your it is to achieve what we call 24 7 renewable energy. And that can only be achieved with a mix of different sources of renewable energy So we're seeing more and more organizations go to that because of the carbon impact as well as because of the disaster recovery capabilities that it provides. MICHAEL BIRD it's not necessarily feasible to spin up a, you know, gas power station for every organization. But most organizations can, as you said, put solar panels on their roof and like maybe even be able to put wind turbine in their car park or whatever. KARIM ABOU ZAHAB this is something that we're actually talking about. So how can we in the future make sure that not every single data center. Requires a mini nuclear power plant right next to it because Utilization of electricity of those data centers is skyrocketing. We're seeing data centers that are requiring possibly in the next couple of years, gigawatts of energy. So how can we actually mitigate that? MICHAEL BIRD Um, and but is the answer just more efficient? It, because it feels like, like processes have got more efficient. Batteries last longer on laptops and on phones. You know, we have a certain pool of energy, just use less energy KARIM ABOU ZAHAB Very simple answer. Yes, make your it more efficient. But the implementation of that answer requires quite some work actually. So yes, the newest generation of processors, the newest generation of technology is more efficient, so to speak. however, if you have a race car and you're using it in traffic in London, for example. That race car isn't going anywhere and it's burning a lot of energy in order to stay where it is. And that is exactly how it is nowadays in a lot of places around the world, And that is one of the conversations that we also have with our customers in the sustainable transformation team. And we actually devised a way for our customers to track, to look at efficiency from a broader IT perspective. And this is what we call the five IT efficiency levers. And these levers are equipment efficiency, software efficiency, data efficiency, energy and resource efficiency. MICHAEL BIRD So what are some ways that organizations could use the energy that they have, uh, more, more efficiently? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB Right after I'm done with optimizing the equipment, making sure that the data is efficient and my software is efficient, I can look at the auxiliary resources that I'm utilizing in order to run my IT estate. this is where HPE has a lot of different things that we can help our customers in order to increase the efficiency of how they use that energy. Uh, direct liquid cooling is one of them. And not only that, but we're also. Having a lot of deployments, that are around heat reuse. And usually we look at it as a byproduct of running that data center. But as we know, heat is actually a very valuable asset in a lot of countries. Whether I can use it to, uh, reheat a district pool or I can use it even for a brewery. For example, and this is why we're trying more and more to optimize across the five levers because energy will always be a finite resource. MICHAEL BIRD So I mean, thinking about businesses and organizations and governments and us as citizens, like whose responsibility is power usage? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB when we're talking about the energy, it is all of our responsibilities, right? Like even as individuals, you know? But in terms of the question that you asked, who's responsibility it is, it, it is everyone across that chain. So we're talking that. Governments are implementing efficiency measures. Governments need to regulate the use of energy, and we're seeing that in the EU with the energy efficiency directive, as well as organizations, and it's in organizations. If we zoom into the energy use of IT, this is where there's a bit of a disconnect that happens because IT teams, Usually are not the ones that pay the energy bill. That's actually the facilities that do that. And this is where we're trying to get the IT team and the facilities team to talk with each other in order to achieve better efficiency metrics in order to achieve better running, better optimization of the IT estate itself. And therefore the IT team is happy, the facilities team is happy, and the CFO at least is also happy. MICHAEL BIRD Good answer. Well, Karim, thank you so much for joining us on technology now. It's been a real pleasure. KARIM ABOU ZAHAB Thank you. Thank you, Michael, for having me. MICHAEL BIRD as you know, I'm a bit of an energy nerd. I do quite like, thinking and talking about energy as a, Solar panel and battery owner. so I found this episode pushed some buttons for me and, I think that the big takeaway for me was just about the fact that. we're using more energy, but the energy, generation isn't necessarily growing with the demand. And so there's a disconnect there. So that energy has to come from somewhere. SAM JARRELL I agree. I feel like Karim. Covered a lot. Um, but I think similarly, one of the biggest things that hit me was that we sort of talk about and quite often treat energy like it's an infinite resource, but it definitely isn't it. Like the sources for it, for many of them will go away someday. And so there's that tension between limitless digital growth and then this very finite global energy capacity. And it's becoming harder and harder to ignore. I think that this episode really, really talks to something important, which is how do we handle that? Because there is also the tension between data centers themselves and the need to have them, and, Be able to leverage tools like AI and the impacts that will have in local communities around the world, right? And, the ability for people themselves to also just use energy for personal purposes. So I thought that this was a pretty fascinating conversation and a bit of a wake up call. I don't know if organizations and governments are quite prepared for this. MICHAEL BIRD Yeah. And I think, with everything that's been going on. In the news over the last few weeks. I think energy sovereignty hit the headlines that, not necessarily that phrase, but the concept of, countries. Organizations thinking, do we have enough, you know, are the energy costs gonna go up so much that we have to make some decisions about whether we can afford to pay it, and so the concept of energy sovereignty, I think is quite an interesting one. And, where I live in the uk you know, we have a lot of wind generation. So today, the day we're recording is quite a windy day. So I think at one point 70% of our energy was being generated from wind power . But the thing with that sort of energy is that it's quite spiky. So you can get these like quite big peaks on windy days and then nothing on really calm days. And the, what I joked in the episode was like, we like the solar panels, but you know, we're not renowned for sunny days in the uk. And so you can't necessarily rely on either of those things. is not as reliable as, gas or oil for energy generation, but. could you use batteries to be able to, smooth some of those lumpy bits, maybe there's generally lots of spare energy, so you just spin up that bit of your data center at night. certainly thinking about the grid in the uk, I get incentivized to plug my electric car in at night. I get cheaper energy because there's loads of spare energy. SAM JARRELL I think it's interesting because not everyone wants a conversation about sustainability. but everyone does care about reducing costs and improving performance. So efficiency is sort of the doorway to both. I appreciated that part of the conversation and I imagine in places where there's not really a heavy investment in renewables, as finite energy sources become increasingly strained, this could be a good forcing function from like an efficiency perspective of investing more into renewable energy sources, because you can't just rely for forever on things like natural gas, coal. Oil. And so there needs to be, more levers essentially, like Karim was saying, the five energy levers in order for organizations and countries to stay competitive and stay afloat from like an energy perspective. MICHAEL BIRD the thought of actually generating your own energy on site and having your own energy sovereignty. I wonder if that would be appealing to organizations. Actually, if you can just reduce costs, I mean, that's the conversation, isn't it? It's like we are just gonna be spending less. SAM JARRELL the heat reuse examples I thought were quite fantastic and also kind of dovetail into the costs piece of it all. If we could reuse some of the heat for swimming pools, and breweries and other businesses. It's a clever way to turn a liability into an asset. it, it signals that this isn't just about more energy, but. More intelligent use of that energy. Like you said, mixing the renewables, improving sort of efficiency across the whole stack. designing for sovereignty and resilience and then just making sure that we can actually sustain the data center, AI and, world ambitions we're all actually racing towards. MICHAEL BIRD Absolutely. Now, Sam, we are seeing more and more data centers with on-premise generators who can provide their own energy. So I want to ask Karim one thing as we look forward. how does he see data centers being powered in the future? KARIM ABOU ZAHAB if I would want to make an educated guess, I would say we're not gonna be able to solely rely on high carbon impact energy generation anymore We are utilizing more and more resources every single year basically. I would say that in the future, more and more data centers will have a mix of renewable that is. Whether it's wind, solar, hydro, depends where they are, basically, as well as, higher carbon impact energy sources as well as low carbon energy sources, whichever they come from. SAM JARRELL Okay that brings us to the end of Technology Now for this week. Thank you to our guest, Karim Abou Zahab And of course, to our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us. MICHAEL BIRD If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please do let us know – rate and review us wherever you listen to episodes and if you want to get in contact with us, send us an email to technology now AT hpe.com and don’t forget to subscribe so you can listen first every week. Technology Now is hosted by Sam Jarrell and myself, Michael Bird This episode was produced by Harry Lampert and Izzie Clarke with production support from Alysha Kempson-Taylor, Beckie Bird, Alissa Mitry, and Janessa Ayache. Our theme music was composed by Greg Hooper. SAM JARRELL Our social editorial team is Rebecca Wissinger, Judy-Anne Goldman and Jacqueline Green and our social media designers are Alejandra Garcia, and Ambar Maldonado. MICHAEL BIRD Technology Now is a Fresh Air Production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. (and) we’ll see you next week. Cheers! SAM JARRELL Bye y’all