Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero - Tech and AI

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Paul van der Lingen, Solutions Architects Director at NetApp, explores how to unleash the power of innovation through tech and AI in sustainability

Speaking at Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero, Paul van der Lingen, Solutions Architects Director at NetApp, discusses how to unleash the innovative power of tech and AI in sustainability solutions. 

NetApp is an American data infrastructure company that provides cloud operations solutions, unified data storage and integrated data services. 

Paul explains the importance of sustainability in business growth and profits:

“Here’s the fun thing about profit – we, as the consumers, can determine what has value and what shouldn’t have value. 

“Three years ago there were no questions about sustainability, now we see 20 to 30 points on any RFP will be around sustainability.

“It's at that point where it's going from ‘can you do it?’ to how well you do it.”

Paul van der Lingen speaking at Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero

The impact of data waste

Paul explains that most people aren’t aware of the environmental impact of data waste, yet data centres create more pollution than the entire aviation industry.

“In 2020 ICT was using 2% of the world’s electricity. By 2030 it’s going to be closer to 13% and data storage is going to be 40% of that,” he says.

“Here’s the tragedy: 68% of corporate data created is never looked at, never used, never referenced, never searched or indexed.

“Because people worry it might have value, it needs to be cooled, managed, secured and protected.”

Paul van der Lingen, Solutions Architects Director at NetApp

Improving data management

Paul gives an example to explain how so much data waste is accumulated and what to avoid to prevent further energy use. 

He says: “If you have a data scientist who has a unit of data and you’re using this for AI training. 

“Now imagine you have 250 data scientists and each of them wants a copy of the data. In the ‘old world’ you would take that unit and replicate it 250 times so they could each have access to it. 

“Then, because you never know whether or not you’ll need it, you would just keep it because it was consequence-free. 

“I believe this is where we are seeing the huge explosion of data coming from.

“There are better ways of doing that.”

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