AI needs water — a lot!
This edition explores AI's surprising water consumption, Delhi's smog crisis, and more!
Yo! Happy Friday! 🎉
Or, depending on when this email reaches you, happy day! 🌞
Looks like I’ve hit a “mailfunction” with my newsletter provider, so this issue might be a bit post-poned! 🥁 But hey, we’re here now—let’s dive in
AI is Thirstier Than We Thought 🤖💧
AI isn’t just energy-hungry—it’s downright thirsty! 🥤 Recent studies reveal that it’s consuming four times more water than previously expected. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Data centers use water to cool the servers, which are heating up faster due to intensive AI workloads.
- Asking just 10 to 50 queries in an AI chatbot consumes about 2 liters of water!
- While alternate cooling approaches are being explored, the silver lining is that tech giants have pledged to become “water positive” by 2030, aiming to replenish more water than they consume.
Want the nitty-gritty details? I highly recommend checking out the full article.
Delhi’s Smog Crisis 🌫️
Delhi is facing a serious smog crisis, and things aren’t looking good… (literally)
Remember during the 2020 lockdown when people in Punjab saw the Himalayas for the first time? Fast forward to now… it seems like things have only gotten worse 😔
Meanwhile... 🌍💸💻
- Bitcoin Breaks Records: Bitcoin just hit a new all-time high. As someone who doesn’t invest in crypto anymore, I’m not sure why I’m sharing this… 🤷🏽
- Hottest Year Yet: 2024 is virtually certain to be the hottest year on record 🔥 according to the EU Space Programme. Didn’t know they covered climate news, but it still sucks 😵💫
- Visualizing WWII: Check out this fascinating piece on visualizing WWII through maps from newspapers of the time, by Nathan Goldwag 🗺️📰
For the Developers 🚀
- ESLint Meets CSS: ESLint now has a CSS language plugin—time to uninstall that Prettier plugin! 💅🏼
- New Package Manager: Introducing vlt—a fresh JavaScript package manager and serverless registry
- Framer Motion Rebrands: Framer Motion is now independent and rebranded as Motion!
- State of JS 2024: The State of JS 2024 survey is live! And yes, I’ve definitely heard of everything listed there 😎
🎥 Video of the Week:
Cost of Living Compilation - a satire that feels too real - by Viva La Dirt League