Blog
26.03.2024

In the rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence (AI), innovation is flourishing, transforming industries and reshaping the future. Unlike conventional data center workloads, AI models – like those used in machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) – demand the next generation in computational hardware acceleration, requiring a continuous surge in computational power. 

The energy-intensive nature of AI, particularly during large-scale model training, comes with a growing concern about the environmental impact of the technology. As world-leading AI researcher, Dr. Sasha Luccioni, Hugging Face, observed in her recent TED Talk, “that cloud that AI models live on is actually made out of metal and plastic, powered by vast amounts of energy. And each time you query an AI model, it comes with a cost to the planet.” 

The compute power used to train ChatGPT, for example, equates to enough electricity to power thousands of homes for a year, and the costs for electricity alone to train the next generation models are estimated to reach $400 million per year or more. The need for sustainable AI is pivotal to the future of the technology. 

As Dr. Luccioni rightly suggests, “focusing on AI’s future existential risks is a distraction from its current, very tangible impacts and the work we should be doing right now, or even yesterday, for reducing these impacts.” 

This is why we are excited to work with Hugging Face and support them to build AI in a sustainable way. Hugging Face has been a pivotal force in democratizing AI. Its innovative platform enables users, including data scientists, researchers, and machine learning engineers, to create, train, and deploy NLP and ML models using open-source code, notably by offering pre-trained models.  

At Verne, we’ve been delivering sustainable, high intensity compute for more than a decade. Our data center campuses in Iceland and Finland are engineered to accommodate the most powerful AI servers with options for cutting-edge liquid cooling technologies, all while ensuring our customers that all the energy used to power their equipment comes from 100% renewable energy sources. 

This collaboration is providing Hugging Face developers with access to computational power that is 100% sustainably sourced. Verne and Hugging Face both share a commitment to sustainability and responsible AI development. We aim to set a new standard for the sustainable deployment of AI technologies, by showcasing the possibilities of open-source innovation and energy efficient, high intensity compute without compromising performance. 

Researchers utilizing Hugging Face’s open-source platform are facilitating linguistic research, predicting protein structures, analyzing climate change, and so much more. As AI transforms industries, prioritizing sustainability is crucial. At Verne we pride ourselves on helping our customers power their journey to sustainability. Working together with Hugging Face will enable a much broader community to harness the power of AI while safeguarding our planet for future generations.