An outside view of the new MRS3 Interxion datacenter building, settled in a former submarine base built by the Germans during the Second World War, in Marseille harbour, southern France. Three data centres of the US group Digital Realty, located in Marseille's harbour, are cooled by ‘river cooling’, a process using 3000 cubic metres per hour of mineral-rich water unfit for consumption, from an old coal mine, lowering the centre's energy footprint by 20% and eradicating its need for airconditioning. — AFP
MARSEILLE: Three data centres squatting alongside the cruise ships and freighters in French Mediterranean port Marseille are testing water-saving cooling methods by pumping out an old coal mine.
Efforts like these are under the spotlight as generative artificial intelligence (AI) consumes growing volumes of water, one of the environmental priorities for February’s global AI summit in Paris.
