The Telegraph My details My newsletters Logout Upgrade to Premium My details My newsletters Logout The Telegraph Google cut its electricity bill by 40pc using artificial intelligence put to work at its immense data centres Credit: Google 20 July 2016 • 3:59pm Google is using artificial intelligence to reduce the amount of energy it uses to cool its immense data centres.
 The energy consumed at the centres, a maze of cables, pipes and servers where Google processes all of the information consumed by its users, could account for as much as 2 per cent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions.
 Using machine learning, the search giant said it has managed to reduce the energy used to cool them by as much as 40 per cent.
 Google data centre emitting steam Water vapour streams from cooling towers at a Google data centre called The Dalles in Orgeon Credit: Google The technology created at DeepMind, the Cambridge-based artificial intelligence company acquired by Google in 2014, uses machine learning to understand the environment at the centres and make them more efficient.
 For two years an AI has been analysing a wealth of data from thousands of sensors at the centres, including temperature, weather, power, and pump speeds.
 It has also looked at how the centres run and how the equipment powering them interacts with the environment.
 Google said DeepMind's software reduced total energy use at the centres, of which Google has 12 across the Americas, Europe and Asia, by 15 per cent.
 The company claims responsibility for 0.
01 per cent of global electricity use.
 The following graph is from a "typical" test day, according to Google.
 The drop on the graph reflects the time when Google switched the machine learning control on: Graph showing energy usage at the data centres when the machine learning is switched on and off PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness, and is the ratio of total building energy usage to IT energy usage Credit: Google Google said it now gets 3.
5 times as much computing power out of the same amount of energy as it did five years ago thanks to custom-built servers, more efficient cooling systems that use outside air, and investment in green energy.
 The company wants to cap its increase in energy use at four per cent a year between 2014 and 2020 even as data use grows at a faster rate.
 It also plans to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy.
 But it hasn't said when it will reach that goal, or how much of its power currently comes from renewable sources.
 The data centre algorithm can eventually be used to improve efficiency in other areas, according to Google, including getting more energy from the same amount of input at power plants, and reducing energy and water usage in semiconductor manufacturing.
 Separate companies that run on Google's cloud will also benefit from improved efficiency at the centres, the search giant said.
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