With an initial capacity of 24 megawatts, the innovative data center uses seawater as a natural cooling system. China is submerging data centers into the ocean to keep them cool.Photograph: Shanghai Hailanyun Technology China has become the first country in the world to operate an underwater data center, or UDC, powered by wind. Located off the coast of Shanghai, the complex represents a significant advance in the country's strategy to secure energy supplies in the face of the accelerated growth of artificial intelligence, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce the environmental impact of its technology infrastructure. The initiative is the result of a collaboration between private company HiCloud Technology and state-owned China Communications Construction, which involved an investment of 1.6 billion yuan, equivalent to about $236 million. With an initial capacity of 24 megawatts, the facility is submerged at a depth of 10 meters in the Lin-gang Special Zone, within the China Pilot Free Trade Zone in Shanghai.

Hsinchu, Taiwan – A crane bird flies across a silent rice paddy, the water slowly trickling in the background. It is a tranquil and stereotypical image of an East-Asian countryside. Little seems to suggest I am just a few kilometres removed from one of the hearts of the global economy. This is Hsinchu, a small city close to Taipei in Taiwan. It is what you could literally call the Silicon Valley of the world.

When Google announced this week that its climate emissions had risen by 48% since 2019, it pointed the finger at artificial intelligence. U.S. tech firms are building vast networks of data centers across the globe and say AI is fueling the growth, throwing the spotlight on the amount of energy the technology is sucking up and its impact on the environment. How does AI use electricity?

With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and StableDiffusion being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we've taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us. Indeed, computer-based AI appears to be advancing at an unprecedented rate. But the rate of advancement in robotics – which we could think of as the potential physical embodiment of AI – is slow. Could it be that future AI systems will need robotic "bodies" to interact with the world? If so, will nightmarish ideas like the self-repairing, shape-shifting T-1000 robot from the Terminator 2 movie come to fruition?

There is vast potential for AI, 5G and the Metaverse to be applied towards advancing the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) cause, including Sustainability. Our global economy is facing challenges and the tragic warfare in Ukraine has had consequential impacts on energy supply for much of Europe and beyond. Indeed, McKinsey forecast that $275 Trillion may have to be spent in the period to 2050 (ranging from circa 7% to 9% of global GDP) to achieve carbon next zero. There is a strategic imperative for the EU, UK and the US (following the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022) to push for accelerating the scaling and adoption of renewable energy and advancing battery storage technology at a time when action on Climate Change is a high priority and also the need to diversify energy supplies is growing. AI technology may play a key role in helping scale these areas.

While the Fukushima event led to a particularly strong change in energy policies in Germany, resulting in the so-called Energiewende, or energy transition, the trend toward renewables is visible worldwide. Here, we outline how major challenges of the energy transition have led to a strong need for essential contributions from the computer science community to maintain stability and security of supply, particularly for the electric power grid. As a result, the new discipline of Energy Informatics has emerged which is addressing this highly interdisciplinary and dynamic field of research and development. In tomorrow's energy system, electric power will be provided mainly by photo-voltaic modules on rooftops and in larger field installations, and by wind power plants, onshore as well as offshore. Being weather-dependent, this energy supply is inherently volatile and only partially controllable.

The Department of Justice recently sued Google for allegedly monopolizing the market for search engines. The Department's complaint alleges that Google took numerous actions well before 2010 that formed part of the claimed antitrust violations. I have no comment about the merits. What I do want to call attention to, however, are the dates: a lawsuit beginning in 2020 to try to correct the market consequences of actions that began more than 10 years ago. The revolution that some scholars call "regulating by robot" is already underway.

The human brain has a limit on how much information it can process at once due to a finite energy supply, a new study reveals. UK neuroscientists say that energy supply to the brain remains constant and can't exceed an upper limit, however challenging a task is. But as the brain uses more energy in processing the task at hand, less energy is supplied to processing outside our immediate focus, they say. This results in what's known as'inattentional blindness' – when stimuli that's available in plain sight doesn't register, even if it's valuable to us. This can help explain why we are sometimes unable to concentrate on what our family members are telling us while we're playing video games or watching TV.

SqwidNet, in partnership with Sigfox, has concluded the second round of its Internet of Things (IoT) SA University Challenge with ten university teams competing in the final pitch presentation day this week. The programme is designed to challenge students to develop and create innovative projects focused on building solutions that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals using SqwidNet/Sigfox technology. "We were astounded by the creative thinking displayed by the ten teams that presented their solutions to the judges this week," says Phathizwe Malinga, managing director of SqwidNet. "The solutions presented ranged from agricultural solutions for early pest detection to avoid crop losses, to generating electricity from plants by collecting electrons from roots in an anode and converting that into electricity. We also saw an IoT water monitoring solution, an early fire detection for rural communities and a two-way learning solution using artificial intelligence."

SqwidNet, in partnership with Sigfox, has concluded the second round of its Internet of Things (IoT) SA University Challenge with ten university teams competing in the final pitch presentation day this week. The programme is designed to challenge students to develop and create innovative projects focused on building solutions that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals using SqwidNet / Sigfox technology. "We were astounded by the creative thinking displayed by the ten teams that presented their solutions to the judges this week," says Phathizwe Malinga, managing director of SqwidNet. "The solutions presented ranged from agricultural solutions for early pest detection to avoid crop losses, to generating electricity from plants by collecting electrons from roots in an anode and converting that into electricity. We also saw an IoT water monitoring solution, an early fire detection for rural communities and a two-way learning solution using artificial intelligence."