Artificial Intelligence Contributing to Carbon Emission Crisis Discerned by Seagate
AI's Demand for Data Storage: Seagate's Warning at Computex 2025
Just like cryptocurrency ramped up the GPU market's strain, AI is now hammering data storage companies. At the recent Computex 2025, Seagate didn't shove its new inventions under the rug - instead, it presented a panel highlighting upcoming innovations. According to reports from Digitimes, Seagate didn't hold back on expressing worries about AI's impact on the tech industry, with potential consequences leading to a "carbon crisis".
Seagate didn't just throw numbers at us; it provided actual figures to show the magnitude of the issue. The overall storage capacity produced by the industry is a mere 1 to 2 zettabytes annually, which equates to 1 trillion GB. This pales in comparison to the data that's expected to be generated.
Digitimes shared insights from a survey that Seagate conducted among 1,000 IT professionals. A whopping 72% are planning to, or already are, using AI in their respective fields. Out of these, 90% believe that data storage is pivotal for enhancing AI performance.
With increasing demand, Seagate jumped into research mode and found that traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) have a smaller carbon footprint compared to Solid State Drives (SSDs).
To showcase this, Seagate set up a demo at its booth featuring prototype HDDs equipped with NVMe interfaces. These HDDs connected directly to Nvidia GPUs using data processing units (DPU), offering a glimpse into the future of data center management.
So, what's the future of data storage look like? It's shrouded in uncertainty, but one thing's for sure - change is brewing. As legal requirements demand lower carbon footprints, data centers must adapt to cater to the escalating AI data demands without compromising environmental sustainability.
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Seagate's Approach to Address the Carbon Crisis
- Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) Technology: By increasing data density on storage disks without expanding the physical footprint of drives, HAMR technology enables increased storage capacity while maintaining efficiency.
- Next-Gen Storage Solutions: Seagate is designing more efficient and dense storage solutions to tackle the anticipated explosion in data storage demands driven by AI. These solutions aim to manage the projected tripling of global data volume between 2023 and 2028.
- Sustainability Innovations: Seagate is focusing on developing technologies to mitigate data center expansion's high energy consumption, an obstacle to achieving sustainability.
- Carbon Footprint Reduction: Seagate is working to manage the amplified carbon footprint of data centers due to AI-driven data growth. The company advocates for sustainable technologies and practices to combat this growth and reduce emissions.
- Supply and Demand Balance: The hard drive industry currently faces a significant gap between supply (1-2 zettabytes of storage capacity annually) and demand, which underscores the need for more efficient storage technologies to minimize the carbon footprint while catering to AI-driven data demands.
In response to the potential carbon crisis brought about by AI-driven data growth, Seagate is focusing on developing Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology to increase data density on storage disks without expanding the physical footprint of drives, enabling increased storage capacity while maintaining efficiency. Seagate also aims to create next-generation storage solutions that are more efficient, dense, and capable of managing the anticipated tripling of global data volume between 2023 and 2028. Moreover, the company is innovating to address high energy consumption in data centers by developing technologies that reduce the carbon footprint and are sustainable. To harmonize supply and demand, Seagate is working to address the gap between the current industry storage capacity of 1-2 zettabytes annually and the growing demand influenced by AI-driven data growth.
