Google announced on Wednesday that it has been using a DeepMind-built AI system to control certain parts of its power-hungry data centres over the last few months as it looks to make its vast server farms more environmentally friendly. Last year, a Greenpeace report predicted that the electricity consumption of data centres is set to account for 12% of global electricity consumption by 2017 and companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have some of the biggest data centres in the world. Google said it has been able to reduce the energy consumption of its data centre cooling units -- used to stop Google's self-built servers from overheating -- by as much as 40% with the help of a DeepMind AI system.

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.

Google has finally revealed a commercial use for DeepMind -- a British artificial intelligence company it acquired for over 600 million in 2014. DeepMind made headlines for beating the best human in the world at the notoriously complex board game Go and it's recently started working with hospitals in the UK on a number of healthcare projects but the startup is yet to make any money for Google, until now. Google announced on Wednesday that it has been using a DeepMind-built AI system to control certain parts of its power-hungry data centres over the last few months as it looks to make its vast server farms more environmentally friendly. Last year, a Greenpeace report predicted that the electricity consumption of data centres is set to account for 12% of global electricity consumption by 2017 and companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have some of the biggest data centres in the world. Google said it has been able to reduce the energy consumption of its data centre cooling units -- used to stop Google's self-built servers from overheating -- by as much as 40% with the help of a DeepMind AI system.

Google's DeepMind has reduced its power consumption thanks to artificial intelligence Google is using the firm's artificial intelligence system to control parts of its data centers, DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis told Bloomberg on Tuesday. DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, is using its AI engine to change how data center servers and cooling systems work to reduce power consumption. The company didn't say how much it's saving Google. Hassabis tipped a 15 percent improvement in power efficiency since Google launched the program this year, which he said is a "huge savings in terms of cost." The average electricity price in the U.S. can range from 25 to 40 per megawatt hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Deep learning AI has been put to work in intelligent drones, sequencing genomes, learning the tactics of the ancient Chinese board game Go, and even keeping cats off the lawn. Now, Google has set its DeepMind system loose on its massive data centers, and drastically cut the cost of cooling these facilities in the process. Running Gmail, YouTube, and the all-knowing Google Search guzzles a tremendous amount of power, and while Google has invested heavily in making its servers, cooling systems and energy sources as efficient and green as possible, there's always room for improvement. Especially when the industrial-scale cooling systems are difficult to run efficiently, given the complex interactions that occur between equipment, environment and staff in a data center. To account for all those factors that a human operator or traditional formula-based engineering might miss, the team put DeepMind to work on the problem, and the result was a drastic reduction in power consumption for the center's cooling systems.

An AI research lab owned by Google is going to start meeting NHS patients as it looks to be more open and transparent about how it helps doctors and clinicians to do their jobs. DeepMind, as the startup is known, intends to hold four patient meet ups a year at Google's new London office in King's Cross, with the first "patient engagement forum" taking place in September in an event that will be streamed on YouTube, alongside a live Twitter Q&A. The patient meet ups are taking place because DeepMind wants to get the public on side as it looks to expand its relationship with the NHS. The events will give members of the public the opportunity to ask DeepMind staff about its NHS partnerships and to learn how the Google-owned company intends to improve their healthcare. Founded in 2011 by Demis Hassabis, Mustafa Suleyman and Shane Legg, DeepMind faced criticism from privacy campaigners and some patients after it emerged in May that it had access to millions of NHS patient records for a kidney monitoring project.

The amount of energy consumed by big data centers has always been a headache for tech companies. Keeping the servers cool as they crunch numbers is such a challenge that Facebook even built one of its facilities on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Well, Google has a different solution to this problem: putting its DeepMind artificial intelligence unit in charge and using AI to manage power usage in parts of its data centers. A 40 percent reduction in the amount of electricity needed for cooling, which Google describes as a "phenomenal step forward." After accounting for "electrical losses and other non-cooling inefficiencies," this 40 percent reduction translated into a 15 percent reduction in overall power saving, says Google.

For Google, the massive network of data centers that powers the web giant's operations run up a similarly massive energy tab. The company has been improving server farm efficiency for years, but it recently adopted a novel technique for trimming usage: letting the robots take control. In particular, Google is giving the reins to an artificial intelligence system developed by its subsidiary DeepMind. The AI overlord succeeded in shaving several percentage points off of data center energy consumption, Bloomberg reported. This led to a 15 percent improvement in power-usage efficiency, the metric of how much power goes to the actual computing as opposed to auxiliary services at the data centers.

Google forked out over 600 million ( 400 million) for a little-known London startup called DeepMind in 2014 without specifying how the company's artificial-intelligence technology would be used to increase Google's revenues, which already run into tens of billions of dollars every year. That all changed Wednesday when DeepMind announced that Google had found a use for DeepMind's technology in its enormous data centres. Since being acquired by Google, DeepMind's AI has been used to beat humans at board games and create free apps with the National Health Service. Neither application has helped Google make, or save, any money. But now Google is using a DeepMind-built AI system to control the huge air-conditioning units in its power-hungry data centres, where servers consume enough energy to power entire cities and get very hot in the process. The AI does this by predicting how much air conditioning will be needed to deal with an anticipated change in data-centre temperature, which fluctuates as demand for services like YouTube, Google Maps, and Gmail rises and falls.

DeepMind may be a master at one of the most complex games on Earth, but can it handle the day-to-day energy concerns of a Google data center? Yes, as it turns out, and with a vengeance. The power needs of a data center depend on lots of factors, from demand to the weather, and adjusting to or predicting these variables in order to achieve maximal power efficiency can be difficult indeed. Google has been applying machine learning to the problem, building a neural model with which its AI can keep all these factors in mind, so to speak. The researchers finally let DeepMind loose on a live data center -- and the results were immediately validating.