A recently released report by Pure Storage, a data storage services company, revealed that increased energy consumption for AI deployment is a major challenge for 77% of public agencies in Singapore. The report, “Drivers of Change: Meeting the Energy and Data Demands of AI Adoption in Singapore’s Public Sector”, reveals the key challenge for the public agencies’ pursuit of AI, the increased energy consumption and its impact on sustainability goals.
The report found that 77% of Singapore’s respondents are concerned with the rise in energy consumption driven by AI. With sustainability (90%) remaining a top priority in Singapore’s public sector, they are conscious about mitigating AI’s impact on energy use and are exploring solutions such as energy-efficient infrastructure and optimising the use of equipment.
The report also found that 83% of the organisations surveyed needed a complete or substantial overhaul of their IT infrastructure before they could deploy AI. Many of the respondents said that they lacked an understanding of the IT requirements needed for their AI projects.
Also, 100% of the public agencies surveyed agree that meeting ESG goals is impossible without adequately preparing IT infrastructure to support AI initiatives.
“The AI deployment journey is complex, and includes many factors such as escalating energy, data, and compute demands that impact both the success of an AI project and its ultimate impact on the environment and society. To sustain Singapore’s national AI strategy rollout, public agencies must ensure that they have set up their foundational infrastructure in a way that optimises both AI-scale data demands and energy efficiency. As AI paves the way forward to improve Singapore’s citizen services, meeting sustainability and the sector’s ESG goals remains critical in order to work towards a net-zero carbon economy,” said Nathan Hall, Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Pure Storage.
