Smartphones will have to help with AI's insatiable demand for power: Experts

Moving some processes to end-devices could relieve pressure on infrastructure

- Joyce Lee

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are placing more demands on power, and the task of meeting those demands will fall increasingly on end-devices such as smartphones, a panel of business leaders said.

Currently, AI systems rely on data centers to support their processes, with increasing demand for electricity, said Mr Nigel Toon, chief executive of Graphcore, a British semiconductor firm that develops specialized chips for AI.

"You look at the way database centers were built just a few years ago, maybe 20 kilowatts in a (server) rack. Now racks are 400 kilowatts," he said, referring to the power assigned to a server rack in a data center. "It's just mind-blowing the amount of power that needs to be delivered to these sites."

Eventually, this immense need for energy will strain the power infrastructure and affect the quality of electricity being supplied to other consumers.

Mr Toon was speaking at a panel discussion during Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore: The Age of Intelligence on July 22.

The global research conference is organized by Fortune Asia and Accenture in partnership with Ant International. It is being held at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore from July 22 to 23.