Google Used Their Deepmind AI to Slash Their Electric Bill

Google put artificial intelligence Deepmind in charge of controlling parts of its data centers to reduce power consumption, manipulating computer servers and equipment to manage it.

The result: A 15% improvement in power usage efficiency (PUE) that would eventually make their $600 million investment in the AI well worth the long-term savings, which could easily reach millions of dollars through the years to come. Notably, the typical electricity prices that companies pay in the U.S. range from about $25 to $40 per MWh.

In 2014, Google says its electricity consumption totaled 4,402,836 MW—comparable to the average yearly consumption of more than 350,000 U.S. family homes, with its data centers hiking up their usage the most.

DeepMind Co-Founder Demis Hassabis says the benefits of Deepmind is that, not only has the power usage decreased, it's a huge saving in terms of cost and also great for the environment.

"It controls about 120 variables in the data centers. The fans and the cooling systems and so on, and windows and other things," Hassabis said. "They were pretty astounded."