Holy TB: Coaching and managing complicated AI fashions requires not solely vital computing energy but in addition huge fleets of succesful storage units. Seagate plans to construct a brand new AI-focused enterprise round this want, growing new disk drives with unprecedented storage capacities within the not-so-distant future.
Seagate expects to launch a 100-terabyte exhausting disk drive by 2030, anticipating that AI firms would require such large storage for his or her more and more complicated chatbots and generative AI providers. In line with B.S. Teh, who oversees Seagate’s international industrial technique growth and operations, there’ll quickly be appreciable demand for very massive drives primarily based on confirmed magnetic storage know-how.
Presently, Seagate’s largest exhausting drive is the 36TB Exos M mannequin, launched earlier this yr. The corporate has not too long ago invested closely in advancing HDD-based options to maintain rising storage capability. Seagate is a serious proponent of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), a know-how that enhances information density by utilizing a laser diode hooked up to every recording head to extend the variety of bits saved on a magnetic floor.
Seagate can also be pursuing further breakthroughs, together with NVMe-based HDDs aimed toward considerably enhancing the reliability and sustainability of storage methods in enterprise and information middle environments.
Like Nvidia and plenty of different tech firms right this moment, Seagate now manufacturers itself as an “AI firm,” signaling the place it believes the cash is – or can be – within the coming years.
“A key aspect to having fun with surging revenues within the AI trade is offering the storage capability AI firms want,” Teh acknowledged in a current interview. “Nothing matches exhausting disk drives in assembly this rising demand.” The 70-year-old HDD know-how stays well-suited for the anticipated growth in AI information facilities, whilst analysts and NGOs increase issues concerning the environmental and vitality impacts of this development.
The Worldwide Vitality Company estimates {that a} single ChatGPT question consumes as much as 2.9 watt-hours of energy, whereas a easy Google search is sort of 10 instances extra environment friendly. Seagate is addressing environmental issues by specializing in components it could possibly affect via its enterprise and manufacturing practices.
Newer exhausting disk drives are designed to both decrease energy consumption per terabyte or improve information density. As clients combine these drives into their information facilities, Teh recommended they are going to profit from diminished house, vitality, and useful resource necessities. Moreover, Seagate is working to cut back the environmental footprint of its manufacturing crops by incorporating renewable vitality sources.
