5 ms·

MSFT needs so much power to train that it's considering small nuclear reactors

56 points by signa11 3y ago

superchroma 3y ago
Yeah this feels like crypto again.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
  In case people missed this particular (micro)trend: Bitcoin mining company buys Pennsylvania power plant to meet electricity needs [1] A Bitcoin Boom Fueled by Cheap Power, Empty Plants and Few Rules [2] Bitcoin miners revived a dying coal plant – then CO2 emissions soared [3] [1] https://www.techspot.com/news/91430-bitcoin-mining-company-buys-pennsylvania-power-plant-meet.html https://www.techspot.com/news/91430-bitcoin-mining-company-b... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/nyregion/bitcoin-mining-upstate-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/nyregion/bitcoin-mining-u... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-miners-revive-fossil-fuel-plant-co2-emissions-soared https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-m...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thefurdrake 3y ago
Nuclear power plants to offset power use from new tech: Good. Nuclear power plants being run by Microsoft Corporation: Concerning.
- jstummbillig 3y ago
  Why?
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Past history of quality control issues
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    >In todays news, Microsoft reactor management tools have been found to be signed using stolen keys after one reactor was forced into an emergency shutdown after hackers reduced the coolant flow rate I can see it now...
    - jstummbillig 3y ago
      If you think MS would likely be worse at security than whatever other shop could be running your local reactor, I think you are either not being serious or you are getting confused by visibility and what the difficult things about IT are. Trying to secure computers for 6 billion untrained randos, who will do unimaginably dumb things to the system you provide, which you have to keep super accessible while doing so, might not look very exciting, but is probably at least several magnitudes more difficult than securing a highly controlled, controllable and (I assume) strictly audited power plant.
    - NBJack 3y ago
      "It looks like you're trying to avert a nuclear meltdown. Would you like some help with that?" [YES] NO
      - hurutparittya 3y ago
        [ YES ] [ MAYBE LATER ]
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    Because Microsoft has a difficult relationship with information security and developing internal corporate procedures that are more conducive to growth and safety than to pleasing interpersonal and interdepartment disputes.
    - msm_ 3y ago
      To be fair, because of my job I hear about a lot of issues at the national level, and ICS (like power plants, water treatment facilities, etc) have terrible track record of security (think: admin panels with default password just left open on the internet). I think even Microsoft will better than that, since they actually know what they're doing (compared to a bunch of engineers managing the plant).
      - thefurdrake 3y ago
        Oh, yeah. ICS/SCADA is definitely the worst industry I've heard of as far as security is concerned. I don't think Microsoft has anything to contribute to that, because no, I don't think Microsoft possesses the technical competence to deal with these systems. They might have more /generalized/ infosec knowledge, but snark aside, I doubt they have the resources they need to really dig into SCADA security simply for the fact that they've never really needed to. I think it'd take them years. It'd take them years to build a power plant, though...
        cesarb 3y ago
        > I don't think Microsoft has anything to contribute to that, [...] simply for the fact that they've never really needed to. The unfortunately still very popular OPC protocol suite (except for the newer OPC-UA) runs over DCOM (making it very annoying to interface with if you're not running Windows). The hardening changes Microsoft did to DCOM, starting with Windows XP SP2 and still ongoing, directly affect the security of these systems (and also make them even more annoying to interface with if you're not running Windows).
  - diogenes4 3y ago
    I'd think private enterprise would be the last people able to be trusted with nuclear power. Not to mention there seems to be no support from dc for building them to power, you know, useful things like lights and heat.
pjfin123 3y ago
This would be so cool, hopefully this helps get nuclear off the ground.
- pstuart 3y ago
  I'm 110% for renewables as a path forward, but the promise of nuclear power is still tempting. Small Modular Reactors seem to be the only way to make it work in an cost-effective manner. There's enough players to give one hope this might come to pass: https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modular-reactor-companies/ https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modul... That said, there needs to be brutally transparent examination of operational safety and possible contingencies (e.g., terrorism, earthquakes, tidal waves, heat waves, etc).
  - keep_reading 3y ago
    Are you implying that nuclear is not renewable? Tidal wave energy usage would cause us to lock with the moon in 1000 years https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/tide.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/tide.html
    - pstuart 3y ago
      Wow. Good thing it hasn't caught on and shows no promise of doing so.
    - tmtvl 3y ago
      Why doI suddenly hear the Majora's Mask music?
    - jannyfer 3y ago
      Rebuttal on 1000 years claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37383283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37383283
      - keep_reading 3y ago
        "Energy consumption has decoupled from population growth rates and economic growth." and no citations... Every bit of human progress we make is through more energy usage. Are we reducing the rate we build infrastructure? Are we building and manufacturing fewer things? Have we reduced transportation of people, goods, and services? No, it always goes up. How are we going to dig ourselves out from under the weight of oil? Building renewables. They require massive amounts of energy. It's all energy. The more energy you can harness the more comfortable your life will be. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44095 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44095 https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/energy-supply/global-outlook/energy-demand https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/energy-supply/gl...
rany_ 3y ago
> Nevertheless, the company signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, a fusion startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this year, with the hopes of buying electricity from it as soon as 2028. Except that's not actually true, Sam Altman had nothing to do with that company's founding though he did play a role in leading Series E funding in late 2021. I was a bit spooked by this because it sounded like a clear-cut case of corruption as there is no way Sam Altman's start-up would succeed where many others have failed... but now it's a bit more murky and less clear the level of funny business involved in that deal.
- yumraj 3y ago
  Perhaps Sam Altman found that startup in the same way Musk found Tesla, by making an investment and being recognized as a co-founder being one of the terms.
  - HaZeust 3y ago
    I'm almost as anti-Musk as it gets, and this parallel is still disingenuous. The duration of time necessary for a company to reach its Series E, and the act of investing at that duration of time, is NOWHERE near equal - or comparable - to Musk's investment in Tesla just 7 months into its lifetime.
greenie_beans 3y ago
would love if ai forced the market to adopt nuclear
bratgpttamer 3y ago
How many Bitcoin networks' worth of energy are required to train the models that generate these silly JPEGs?
- eulgro 3y ago
  How many silly Bitcoin networks' worth of energy are required to train the models that generate these silly JPEGs? FTFY
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Exactly this. People who don't value Bitcoin or what it stands for say it's a waste of resources. Same can be said about AI image generation and LLMs
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > People who don't value Bitcoin or what it stands for say it's a waste of resources. What? Even if you do value Bitcoin, you're going to make a pretty uphill argument that it's an efficient/effective use of resources to mine.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
      Less resources than traditional money printing/distribution/banking.
      - nullindividual 3y ago
        Since banking is a solved problem, it sounds like getting rid of BTC would save some CO2 output.
      - patmorgan23 3y ago
        What about traditional credit/electronic banking?
        3y ago
lofaszvanitt 3y ago
Cyberpunk...
- biomcgary 3y ago
  The article gave me Snow Crash vibes.
bjourne 3y ago
The article on futurism.com references an article on theverge.com https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/26/23889956/microsoft-next-generation-nuclear-energy-smr-job-hiring https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/26/23889956/microsoft-next-g... which in references a job posting on microsoft.com https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1627555/Principal-Program-Manager-Nuclear-Technology https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1627555/Pri... This story very much reminds me of "The Submarine": http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html I.e. Microsoft is not pursuing SMRs, but some marketing agency have successfully planted the job posting and is successfully making media amplify the buzz. Or if the story is true it is still just a job posting, and you can't draw that big conclusions from it.
- kristianp 3y ago
  I was thinking that someone at Microsoft wants their competition to waste a lot of money investigating nuclear for their data centres. I've been watching a lot of Mad Men recently though.
- mFixman 3y ago
  I don't understand. How would a marketing agency plant a job posting in the Microsoft careers site?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- m463 3y ago
  I think the message might be "We are big on AI"
elromulous 3y ago
Obvious question: why don't Google/meta/etc have this problem?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nomel 3y ago
  What “problem” specifically? What’s the power usage/model performance for Google and Meta, who are both behind GPT-4? And, is that linear or some exponentially growing thing, with model competence? Nuclear is an incredibly environmentally friendly way to train. It’s a problem if they keep using gas/coal or sucking up renewables that could be used for something better.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Recent discussion on hiring for Nuclear Manager https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627697

56 points by signa11 3y ago

superchroma 3y ago

Yeah this feels like crypto again.

0xcde4c3db 3y ago
In case people missed this particular (micro)trend: Bitcoin mining company buys Pennsylvania power plant to meet electricity needs [1] A Bitcoin Boom Fueled by Cheap Power, Empty Plants and Few Rules [2] Bitcoin miners revived a dying coal plant – then CO2 emissions soared [3] [1] https://www.techspot.com/news/91430-bitcoin-mining-company-buys-pennsylvania-power-plant-meet.html https://www.techspot.com/news/91430-bitcoin-mining-company-b... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/nyregion/bitcoin-mining-upstate-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/nyregion/bitcoin-mining-u... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-miners-revive-fossil-fuel-plant-co2-emissions-soared https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-m...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thefurdrake 3y ago

Nuclear power plants to offset power use from new tech: Good. Nuclear power plants being run by Microsoft Corporation: Concerning.

jstummbillig 3y ago
Why?
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Past history of quality control issues
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  >In todays news, Microsoft reactor management tools have been found to be signed using stolen keys after one reactor was forced into an emergency shutdown after hackers reduced the coolant flow rate I can see it now...
  - jstummbillig 3y ago
    If you think MS would likely be worse at security than whatever other shop could be running your local reactor, I think you are either not being serious or you are getting confused by visibility and what the difficult things about IT are. Trying to secure computers for 6 billion untrained randos, who will do unimaginably dumb things to the system you provide, which you have to keep super accessible while doing so, might not look very exciting, but is probably at least several magnitudes more difficult than securing a highly controlled, controllable and (I assume) strictly audited power plant.
  - NBJack 3y ago
    "It looks like you're trying to avert a nuclear meltdown. Would you like some help with that?" [YES] NO
    - hurutparittya 3y ago
      [ YES ] [ MAYBE LATER ]
- thefurdrake 3y ago
  Because Microsoft has a difficult relationship with information security and developing internal corporate procedures that are more conducive to growth and safety than to pleasing interpersonal and interdepartment disputes.
  - msm_ 3y ago
    To be fair, because of my job I hear about a lot of issues at the national level, and ICS (like power plants, water treatment facilities, etc) have terrible track record of security (think: admin panels with default password just left open on the internet). I think even Microsoft will better than that, since they actually know what they're doing (compared to a bunch of engineers managing the plant).
    - thefurdrake 3y ago
      Oh, yeah. ICS/SCADA is definitely the worst industry I've heard of as far as security is concerned. I don't think Microsoft has anything to contribute to that, because no, I don't think Microsoft possesses the technical competence to deal with these systems. They might have more /generalized/ infosec knowledge, but snark aside, I doubt they have the resources they need to really dig into SCADA security simply for the fact that they've never really needed to. I think it'd take them years. It'd take them years to build a power plant, though...
      - cesarb 3y ago
        > I don't think Microsoft has anything to contribute to that, [...] simply for the fact that they've never really needed to. The unfortunately still very popular OPC protocol suite (except for the newer OPC-UA) runs over DCOM (making it very annoying to interface with if you're not running Windows). The hardening changes Microsoft did to DCOM, starting with Windows XP SP2 and still ongoing, directly affect the security of these systems (and also make them even more annoying to interface with if you're not running Windows).
- diogenes4 3y ago
  I'd think private enterprise would be the last people able to be trusted with nuclear power. Not to mention there seems to be no support from dc for building them to power, you know, useful things like lights and heat.

pjfin123 3y ago

This would be so cool, hopefully this helps get nuclear off the ground.

pstuart 3y ago
I'm 110% for renewables as a path forward, but the promise of nuclear power is still tempting. Small Modular Reactors seem to be the only way to make it work in an cost-effective manner. There's enough players to give one hope this might come to pass: https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modular-reactor-companies/ https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modul... That said, there needs to be brutally transparent examination of operational safety and possible contingencies (e.g., terrorism, earthquakes, tidal waves, heat waves, etc).
- keep_reading 3y ago
  Are you implying that nuclear is not renewable? Tidal wave energy usage would cause us to lock with the moon in 1000 years https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/tide.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/tide.html
  - pstuart 3y ago
    Wow. Good thing it hasn't caught on and shows no promise of doing so.
  - tmtvl 3y ago
    Why doI suddenly hear the Majora's Mask music?
  - jannyfer 3y ago
    Rebuttal on 1000 years claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37383283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37383283
    - keep_reading 3y ago
      "Energy consumption has decoupled from population growth rates and economic growth." and no citations... Every bit of human progress we make is through more energy usage. Are we reducing the rate we build infrastructure? Are we building and manufacturing fewer things? Have we reduced transportation of people, goods, and services? No, it always goes up. How are we going to dig ourselves out from under the weight of oil? Building renewables. They require massive amounts of energy. It's all energy. The more energy you can harness the more comfortable your life will be. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44095 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44095 https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/energy-supply/global-outlook/energy-demand https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/energy-supply/gl...

rany_ 3y ago

> Nevertheless, the company signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, a fusion startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this year, with the hopes of buying electricity from it as soon as 2028. Except that's not actually true, Sam Altman had nothing to do with that company's founding though he did play a role in leading Series E funding in late 2021. I was a bit spooked by this because it sounded like a clear-cut case of corruption as there is no way Sam Altman's start-up would succeed where many others have failed... but now it's a bit more murky and less clear the level of funny business involved in that deal.

yumraj 3y ago
Perhaps Sam Altman found that startup in the same way Musk found Tesla, by making an investment and being recognized as a co-founder being one of the terms.
- HaZeust 3y ago
  I'm almost as anti-Musk as it gets, and this parallel is still disingenuous. The duration of time necessary for a company to reach its Series E, and the act of investing at that duration of time, is NOWHERE near equal - or comparable - to Musk's investment in Tesla just 7 months into its lifetime.

greenie_beans 3y ago

would love if ai forced the market to adopt nuclear

bratgpttamer 3y ago

How many Bitcoin networks' worth of energy are required to train the models that generate these silly JPEGs?

eulgro 3y ago
How many silly Bitcoin networks' worth of energy are required to train the models that generate these silly JPEGs? FTFY
zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Exactly this. People who don't value Bitcoin or what it stands for say it's a waste of resources. Same can be said about AI image generation and LLMs
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > People who don't value Bitcoin or what it stands for say it's a waste of resources. What? Even if you do value Bitcoin, you're going to make a pretty uphill argument that it's an efficient/effective use of resources to mine.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
    Less resources than traditional money printing/distribution/banking.
    - nullindividual 3y ago
      Since banking is a solved problem, it sounds like getting rid of BTC would save some CO2 output.
    - patmorgan23 3y ago
      What about traditional credit/electronic banking?
      - 3y ago

lofaszvanitt 3y ago

Cyberpunk...

biomcgary 3y ago
The article gave me Snow Crash vibes.

bjourne 3y ago

The article on futurism.com references an article on theverge.com https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/26/23889956/microsoft-next-generation-nuclear-energy-smr-job-hiring https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/26/23889956/microsoft-next-g... which in references a job posting on microsoft.com https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1627555/Principal-Program-Manager-Nuclear-Technology https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1627555/Pri... This story very much reminds me of "The Submarine": http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html I.e. Microsoft is not pursuing SMRs, but some marketing agency have successfully planted the job posting and is successfully making media amplify the buzz. Or if the story is true it is still just a job posting, and you can't draw that big conclusions from it.

kristianp 3y ago
I was thinking that someone at Microsoft wants their competition to waste a lot of money investigating nuclear for their data centres. I've been watching a lot of Mad Men recently though.
mFixman 3y ago
I don't understand. How would a marketing agency plant a job posting in the Microsoft careers site?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
m463 3y ago
I think the message might be "We are big on AI"

elromulous 3y ago

Obvious question: why don't Google/meta/etc have this problem?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nomel 3y ago
What “problem” specifically? What’s the power usage/model performance for Google and Meta, who are both behind GPT-4? And, is that linear or some exponentially growing thing, with model competence? Nuclear is an incredibly environmentally friendly way to train. It’s a problem if they keep using gas/coal or sucking up renewables that could be used for something better.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Recent discussion on hiring for Nuclear Manager https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37627697