IT Essentials: Sorry, Oracle

AI efficiency gains have upset the ‘just throw money at it’ model

For an industry founded on innovation, the tech sector has shown a sore lack of it when it comes to dealing with AI’s energy problem – until now.

ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, and 2023 was all hype. It wasn’t until 2024 was that we all started to realise the potential scale of AI’s massive energy consumption.

Most AI developers showed only a cursory interest in limiting that power draw, preferring instead to just throw money at ensuring there were enough computing resources to satisfy the demand for essentials, like videos of cats doing the rumba.

The best example is Oracle, which is pursuing AI capacity at any cost; a cost felt this week by thousands of (now former) employees, after the company slashed staff numbers to fund its aggressive datacentre expansion plans (plans that are already making investors jittery).

But, there is an alternative way forward; an alternative that might not require datacentres large enough to consume international levels of energy. Sorry, Oracle.

This week Google announced what might be the biggest breakthrough in AI yet: a new way to optimise model memory that could cut power consumption by as much as six times.

Terrible news if you’re a memory maker, fantastic news if you care about having a planet to live on. It might even mean a faster end to RAMageddon.

What’s even more timely about this news is what’s going on in the wider world. The war in Iran is driving up oil and helium prices, both important for fuelling the AI boom. Being able to cut that consumption would deprive the country of at least some of its power. An infinitesimal amount, true, but wars have been won on such cracks.

Before jumping for joy, this is all very early days, and frankly we’re more likely to see datacentres running six times more AI than becoming six times smaller. But a win is a win.

Even Oracle admits we’re past the period of AI hype and into the era of accountability. I talked about that with UK country leader Siobhan Wilson, and you can listen to her answer now in the latest episode of the Ctrl Alt Lead podcast.

Oracle, like other companies, is integrating AI at every level of the stack. VP Steve Miranda assured journalists that wouldn’t change pricing – but admitted that AI agents would. That links directly to this analysis by Penny Horwood, looking at the risks of ungoverned (and sometimes ungovernable) AI deployment.

We also have continued coverage from last week’s Security Leaders Summit, where Channel 4 BISO Tej Singh begged recruiters to stop using ChatGPT, and John Leonard dug into whether Q-Day is really nigh.