According to reports, Microsoft is creating a new team and employing a specialist to create an energy strategy based on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and microreactor energy in order to progress its artificial intelligence (AI) objectives. According to a job posting obtained by The Verge, the tech giant is looking for a principal programme manager to oversee its nuclear technology initiatives in support of AI model development.
The ideal applicant should have at least six years of experience in engineering, the energy sector, or the nuclear industry. The job also includes investigating more experimental energy technologies. Due to sophisticated computations and vast data sets, complex machine learning models, like deep learning, can use a lot of energy. According to a 2019 MIT Technology Review study, the carbon footprint of training a single AI model is equivalent to that of five cars over the course of their lifespan.
Creating more energy-efficient algorithms and hardware, as well as employing renewable energy sources for data centers, like nuclear power, are a few strategies for reducing the energy consumption of AI models. One of the key benefits of nuclear power, according to the U.S. Office of Nuclear Energy, is that it emits no greenhouse gases and no carbon dioxide. But according to Stanford University researchers, this energy source isn’t the answer to environmental issues because it takes a long time to develop and operate, leaves a big carbon imprint, and has a high chance of meltdown.
