This is How Skynet Begins, by Controlling the AC in Google's Data Centers

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Google forked out over $500 million for a little-known London startup called DeepMind in 2014 without specifying how the company's artificial-intelligence technology would be used to increase Google's revenues, which already run into tens of billions of dollars every year.

That all changed on Wednesday when DeepMind announced that Google had found a use for DeepMind's technology in its enormous data centers.

...now Google is using a DeepMind AI system to control the huge air-conditioning units in its power-hungry data centers, where servers consume enough energy to power entire cities and get very hot in the process.

The AI system does this by predicting how much air conditioning will be needed to deal with an anticipated change in data-center temperature, which fluctuates as demand for services like YouTube, Google Maps, and Gmail rises and falls.

DeepMind says its AI can make the cooling units in Google's data centers 40% more efficient, ultimately cutting the data centers' overall electricity consumption by 15%.

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