Sunny days ahead for cloud computing?

The Digital Alarmist

Imagine yourself on top of Mt Everest, trying to wave away the clouds so that you can see heaven, or that you are in the middle of the Sahara desert, waiting for a cloudburst to slake your thirst on the few water droplets falling from the sky. In either case, the last thing you should be worrying about is whether the electronic files stored in the cloud are still accessible on the smartphone you surely did not forget when you embarked on your adventure.

Lest you stop reading this article any further, let me emphasize that this article is also about information technology, in specific, the internet of things (IoT), but with one caveat. It focuses on the interconnectedness of all sorts of things, digital objects included. What sorts of things, you might ask? Well, here’s a partial list – cloud computing, energy consumption, carbon emissions, water, and deforestation.

The word ‘cloud’ as used in the phrases ‘cloud computing’ and ‘stored in the cloud’ has nothing to do with a mass of water droplets suspended in the air but everything to do with the thousands of digital storage devices, networking equipment and servers housed in massive buildings across the globe: the so-called data centres where every piece of electronic communication -- bank transactions, social media postings, medical data, diplomatic correspondence, proprietary corporate data, etc -- is stored forever.

These digital footprints cannot be erased unless the devices containing the data are physically destroyed (euphemistically termed ‘electronic waste’, non-recyclable, of course). The cloud servers are not impregnable, since they can also be hacked in to and user data compromised or held to ransom. Since we are all only too aware of how well Facebook safeguards user data, we should be wary of storing our files in the ‘cloud’ without being blindsided by IT companies whose cloud computing marketing strategy is singularly focused on the 24/7 accessibility of data from any location.

Data centres generate significant amounts of heat, which is dissipated by elaborate cooling systems. If the buildings housing the storage devices do catch fire, an enormous amount of water is needed to put out the flames – water supplied by an interconnected system of fire sprinkler systems and fire hydrants, all of which require electricity to operate.

While the physical locations of the data centres and ownership of their contents are at the heart of privacy and trade disputes between nation-states, the environmental impact of the data centres is conveniently ignored. Erasing digital footprints is important but so is the erasing of carbon footprints and conservation of scare water resources. According to a 2019 report in Nature, data centres use an estimated 200-terawatt hours (TWh) each year, which is more than the national energy consumption of some countries.

To reduce power consumption and take advantage of the natural cooling effects of frigid temperatures and forested regions, Amazon, Google, Meta and IBM have been locating their newer data centres in sparsely populated Nordic countries close to the Arctic, such as Sweden, Iceland and Finland. Some of these data centres occupy as much as 400,000 square feet of space.

Incidentally, both Amazon and Google have cloud computing facilities in Mumbai and Delhi. Since both cities stay hot most of the year, are chronically short of water, and plagued by frequent power outages, I wonder how the data centres stay in operation. I would not be surprised if the centres were to be relocated to the still forested and sparsely populated Himalayan regions of the country where the temperatures are significantly cooler, there is plenty of water, and any number of bureaucrats and politicians willing to facilitate the move. For a price.

Perhaps former US President Donald Trump’s desire to purchase Greenland from Iceland, though it was not for sale, was instigated by his backers in the IT industry? Seventy-five years ago, the world’s first electronic computer, dubbed ENIAC, was unveiled in Philadelphia. It weighed 60,000 pounds, occupied 1,800 square feet of space, and consumed 150 KW of electricity. The ENIAC could perform 3,500 additions per second and all storage was on punched cards. The computer’s vacuum tubes and relays frequently failed because of the intense heat generated by the system. It is rumoured that the lights in Philadelphia dimmed whenever ENIAC was turned on. Sure, today’s data centres can compute faster and store more data, but their shortcomings aren’t all that different from that of the ENIAC, are they?