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> the system promises to consume only 500 kilowatts of total power. I don't understand, if these 500kW is the power consumed by a computation itself, or does t
by ordu 2y ago
> the system promises to consume only 500 kilowatts of total power.
I don't understand, if these 500kW is the power consumed by a computation itself, or does the cooling equipment consumption included? To suck out 500kW of heat out of a shoebox box while keeping box's temperature at 4 kelvin... it seems to me impossible.
- gaze 2y agoA 4 K dry cryostat’s refrigeration system usually eats about 4-5 kW. Not sure what’s going on here.
- karma_pharmer 2y ago4-5kW to extract how many picowatts of heat from the system? You can't quote a number for the cryocooler without knowing how much heat is being injected into the thing it needs to keep below 4.2K.
- boxed 2y agoWell, this isn't just going to keep inert matter cold, this will do massive amounts of computation, so it makes sense that it would need to dump a lot of heat.
- gaze 2y agoSuch 4 K cryostats have about a 30 W cooling power.
- bawolff 2y agoOne presumes a super conducting computer would generate less heat, given the lower resistence due to superconductivity
- IsTom 2y agoCurrent fastest supercomputer has a little over 1 exaflop and consumes over 20MW. 20 exaflops at 500kW is a lot less power, but it'd probably still generate a substantial amount of heat.
- breezeTrowel 2y agoSuperconductors do not generate heat when in their superconducting state. Otherwise they wouldn't be superconductors.
- boxed 2y agoYea, but just keeping everything in the static superconducting state wouldn't be a computer either.
- Filligree 2y agoSuperconductors do not generate heat for a constant DC current. Computers are very, very AC, and you do get heat production anytime the current changes. It is, IMO, a bit dubious whether or not anything is truly flowing in a superconductor at constant current. Electrons don't have identity, so the 'constant flow of electrons' can be rephrased as 'the physical system isn't changing'... and the degree to which you can tell that there are electrons moving about is also the degree to which the superconductor isn't truly zero-resistance.
- eig 2y agoYou can tell electrons are flowing in a superconductor by measuring the magnetic field induced around them.
- Filligree 2y agoYou can tell there's a magnetic field, certainly. My argument is essentially one of nomenclature; I don't feel a constant electron-field should count as 'flowing'. Of course it isn't actually constant -- there are multiple electrons, and you can tell that the electron field is quantized. But the degree to which that is visible, is the exact degree to which the superconductor nevertheless doesn't superconduct!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- boxed 2y agoI read "total power" to be total power, including cooling.
- karma_pharmer 2y agoFunny how they are so evasive about such a critical distinction.
- boxed 2y agoI don't see how they are. They wrote total power including cooling over and over.
- karma_pharmer 2y agoThis is false. The phrase "including cooling" occurs nowhere in the article. The word "cooling" alone appears seven times, none of them in the context of specific power numbers.
- boxed 2y ago> The cooling overhead required to operate superconducting computers becomes less significant at higher than tens of petaflops. There, superconducting AI boards become more energy efficient than state-of-the-art GPUs. Pretty clear to me. > What’s more, the system promises to consume only 500 kilowatts of total power. Also quite clear.
- karma_pharmer 2y ago> The word "cooling" alone appears seven times, none of them in the context of specific power numbers. Exactly like I said. Additionally, nowhere is it said that "the system" includes the cryocooler. Since IMEC doesn't make cryocoolers, it would be unreasonable to assume that their "system" includes one. This quantum stuff is starting to get even more scammy than cryptocurrency.
- eig 2y agoThe 500kW almost certainly includes the cooling losses. The chips alone theoretically consume power roughly according to the Landauer-Von Neumann limit, which would be less than microwatts for the shoebox they describe. In real life it’ll be more due to the switching flux and EM radiation generated but I think still much less than a watt. Liquid helium cooling and pumping through the chip is super inefficient which is where 99% of the energy is going.
- karma_pharmer 2y agoFrom the article: > there is a glass bridge to a warmer area, a balmy 77 K that hosts the DRAM. The DRAM technology is not superconducting, There is a lot of not-superconducting circuitry in that shoebox; without it you wouldn't have enough memory to do anything that qualifies as "AI". The reasonable conclusion is that the power figure covers only the components they have described. Note that the article fails to mention the word "cryocooler" even once. I know of other research groups (not IMEC) who are pretty shameless about excluding cryocooler power and cost from all of their press-release/popsci materials. It's considered acceptable in this field.