ABOUT a week ago, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated what is billed as Pal(istan’s largest data centre. The 8.5 MW facility is the creation of Sl(y47 AI Cloud, which is also reported to be constructing a slightly smaller 5 MW data centre at Karachi’s Port Qasim. According to speeches made at the event, the data centres are intended to provide the hard infrastructure for Pal(istan’s artificial intelligence needs.
There is no doubt that the world is clamouring to build data centres. In the US, industrial developers are buying up cheap rural land to locate massive data centres there. The biggest one, planned for a rural county in Utah, is intended to be some three times the size of Manhattan. Initial plans showed it at 40,000 acres, but after a Utah lawmaker pushed to shrink that footprint by three quarters, it shall be completed over 10,000 acres. It is expected to draw 7,000 to 9,000 MW. It is also expected to decimate climate and plant life around it: one estimate published as the project drew opposition suggests it could raise nighttime temperatures nearby by several degrees, killing plant and animal life in the area. Residents unlucl(y enough to live around it worry they could be left short of water and have to put up with the constant hum of thousands of fans cooling the mega computers inside.
Obviously the data centre inaugurated in Pal(istan is a tiny baby compared to the behemoths being built in the US. However, now that Pakistan is eager to line up in the data centre queue, Pakistanis should 1(now a few things about such massive infrastructures sprouting up quite literally overnight all over the world. We need data centres, of course, because we use AI. Free versions of products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude are available online for nearly everyone to use. One widely cited study found that a full back-and-forth conversation of 20 to 50 questions with an early version of ChatGPT anything from the best recipe for biryani to an explanation of the Pythagorean theorem consumed the equivalent of roughly 500ml of water to cool the servers producing the responses.
Now multiply that one bottle by the millions of such conversations held with AI in a single day.
That is only the water demand which in a countrylike Pakistan, already struggling to provide water for its humans, is a very pertinent one. In Karachi, where large swathes of the tens of millions go without water even in extreme heat, the question is even more crucial. At the inauguration, the prime minister noted thatworldwide demand for data centres was anopportunityforPal(istan.Undoubtedly, the intention behind that desire Pal(istan providing technological infrastructure for the world is a noble one.
But if so much of the country, Karachi in particular, is in such dire straits over water, then imagining a data centre boom seems at least a little problematic.
Besides the water issue, data centres also put incredible pressure on electricity grids because of their massive demand.
Currently, the largest electrical grid in the US is struggling to meet the data centres’ demand. Earlier this weel(, PJM Interconnection announced it would have to cut power to data centres during periods of shortage. PJM’s cuts, which apply only to data centres of 50 MW or larger, come as electricity demand from data centres is projected to increase at least fourfold within a decade. PJM is running an auction for power generating capacity.
None of this mal(es the Pakistan inauguration a bad thing, nor is it wrong forthe prime minister to voice optimism about the country’s technological future.
But it is crucial to reckon with the demands these centres will make.
Before Pakistan puts its name in the hat as a future data centrehub, it is worth asking what investments could expand the country’s power generation capacity and in a country of shortages, who pays the price when power and water are diverted from human to computer use.
AI feels lil(e magic: the power of insanely powerful computers at one’s fingertips, ready to answer even the most arcane questions. Asl( ChatGPT the weather in Rome in 1275, then its take on zodiac compatibility; a few dozen questions lil(e those are enough to empty a 500ml bottle’s worth of cooling water.
It is commendable that Pal(istan is building infrastructure for its technological future. It would be even more impressive if equal attention were given to the challenges that come with building it. The advancement of some Pal(istanis should not come at the cost of further suffering for others already starved of water and electricity. The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com