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The only data in the article that helps to understand the scale in context is this: > It found data centers will account for 8 percent of total electricity use

by creato 2y ago

The only data in the article that helps to understand the scale in context is this: > It found data centers will account for 8 percent of total electricity use in the United States by 2030, a near tripling of their share today. New solar and wind energy will meet about 40 percent of that new power demand from data centers, the forecast said, while the rest will come from a vast expansion in the burning of natural gas. The new emissions created would be comparable to that of putting 15.7 million additional gas-powered cars on the road. So all data center power (not just "AI") is currently 3-4% of US electricity consumption, and is expected to grow to 8% in 6 years.

NewJazz 2y ago
This still doesn't help me understand, because we don't know what non-DC electricity usage will be in 2030. That could vary wildly depending on the adoption of electric cars, HVAC systems, water heaters, clothes dryers, et cetera.
infecto 2y ago
I think we so have upcoming energy crunches between data center buildouts, EVs, heat pumps etc. I am not sure why the current news cycle is about AI. But I guess I don’t fully understand the amount of disdain AI gets as seen in the comments here. In my opinion forcing the grid to modernize is a good thing.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  One reason AI gets extra criticism might be that all the things you mention displace usage of fossil fuels. EVs may be powered partially by natural gas, for example, but that is still better than inefficiently burning gasoline. Heat pumps displace natural gas heaters or fuel oil heaters.
  - justahuman74 2y ago
    AI displaces humans (and thereby their consumption of fossil fuels)
    - NewJazz 2y ago
      Highly debatable whether AI will lead to lower population and/or lower per capita carbon emissions.
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      No, it doesn't. Humans won't consume less fossil fuels to live if they lose their white collar jobs to AI.
      - Jensson 2y ago
        Sure they do, low income individuals consume much less than high income individuals. Reducing living standards is a viable way to reduce pollution.
        pennomi 2y ago
        Saving the climate, one bankruptcy or foreclosure at a time.
- api 2y ago
  Most people run with whatever spin is popular in their circles. AI is the current hype trend so things tend to be either breathlessly pro or anti AI.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Because GPUs are so power hungry that in a conventional data center, a fully loaded HPE Apollo 6500 (which has 8x H100 cards) uses more power than a rack’s total power budget. Running an LLM just for fun requires tremendous amount of energy. Training one from scratch is even more energy intensive. Real AI applications are not much behind either. If you are processing any serious amount of data with AI, you use a lot of energy, again. A smallish water cooled “super computer” class CPU cluster needs “half a megawatt” to operate. As I said elsewhere, you can’t build a multi-megawatt data center “just like that”. Making the power you need available there is a multi-year, multi-institution endeavor on many cases. Similarly, you can’t “just force” the power grid to modernize, because live infrastructure servicing millions moves very slowly for good reasons (like multi-day boot up sequences if it shuts down).
  - infecto 2y ago
    What is an LLM for fun compared to “real AI”. Hard to take your word for anything based on that. Regardless, you absolutely can force the grid to modernize which is what is happening now with DC colocating near new and existing plants along with large inflows of investment into generators.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      I work as a sysadmin at an academic HPC center, and some projects we support use AI for real causes like marine life and water health, and other ecosystem related work. These are production systems which provide real benefits and returns to humanity, and tries to secure our and other species future and on this planet. When compared to these projects, an LLM is just a shiny toy which can do many tasks with worse quality, with no guarantee of correctness and with much higher energy usage. Other numbers I gave is fresh from our data center, about the systems I work with directly. You can dismiss all my comment just because I call a big, energy wasting NN a toy, but nothing I say on this comment is wrong, and I’m reporting them from the trenches directly. > DC colocating near new and existing plants along with large inflows of investment into generators. You can get tons of servers in six weeks, install them in two days, and get them running in a day, tops (for us it’s shorter). If you can get your generators manufactured and delivered to your location in a year, you’re lucky.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
https://www.gensler.com/blog/how-communities-can-benefit-from-mixed-use-data-centers https://www.gensler.com/blog/how-communities-can-benefit-fro...
- squigz 2y ago
  Can you list some benefits of data center usage?

by creato 2y ago

NewJazz 2y ago

This still doesn't help me understand, because we don't know what non-DC electricity usage will be in 2030. That could vary wildly depending on the adoption of electric cars, HVAC systems, water heaters, clothes dryers, et cetera.

infecto 2y ago

I think we so have upcoming energy crunches between data center buildouts, EVs, heat pumps etc. I am not sure why the current news cycle is about AI. But I guess I don’t fully understand the amount of disdain AI gets as seen in the comments here. In my opinion forcing the grid to modernize is a good thing.

NewJazz 2y ago
One reason AI gets extra criticism might be that all the things you mention displace usage of fossil fuels. EVs may be powered partially by natural gas, for example, but that is still better than inefficiently burning gasoline. Heat pumps displace natural gas heaters or fuel oil heaters.
- justahuman74 2y ago
  AI displaces humans (and thereby their consumption of fossil fuels)
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    Highly debatable whether AI will lead to lower population and/or lower per capita carbon emissions.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    No, it doesn't. Humans won't consume less fossil fuels to live if they lose their white collar jobs to AI.
    - Jensson 2y ago
      Sure they do, low income individuals consume much less than high income individuals. Reducing living standards is a viable way to reduce pollution.
      - pennomi 2y ago
        Saving the climate, one bankruptcy or foreclosure at a time.
api 2y ago
Most people run with whatever spin is popular in their circles. AI is the current hype trend so things tend to be either breathlessly pro or anti AI.
bayindirh 2y ago
Because GPUs are so power hungry that in a conventional data center, a fully loaded HPE Apollo 6500 (which has 8x H100 cards) uses more power than a rack’s total power budget. Running an LLM just for fun requires tremendous amount of energy. Training one from scratch is even more energy intensive. Real AI applications are not much behind either. If you are processing any serious amount of data with AI, you use a lot of energy, again. A smallish water cooled “super computer” class CPU cluster needs “half a megawatt” to operate. As I said elsewhere, you can’t build a multi-megawatt data center “just like that”. Making the power you need available there is a multi-year, multi-institution endeavor on many cases. Similarly, you can’t “just force” the power grid to modernize, because live infrastructure servicing millions moves very slowly for good reasons (like multi-day boot up sequences if it shuts down).
- infecto 2y ago
  What is an LLM for fun compared to “real AI”. Hard to take your word for anything based on that. Regardless, you absolutely can force the grid to modernize which is what is happening now with DC colocating near new and existing plants along with large inflows of investment into generators.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    I work as a sysadmin at an academic HPC center, and some projects we support use AI for real causes like marine life and water health, and other ecosystem related work. These are production systems which provide real benefits and returns to humanity, and tries to secure our and other species future and on this planet. When compared to these projects, an LLM is just a shiny toy which can do many tasks with worse quality, with no guarantee of correctness and with much higher energy usage. Other numbers I gave is fresh from our data center, about the systems I work with directly. You can dismiss all my comment just because I call a big, energy wasting NN a toy, but nothing I say on this comment is wrong, and I’m reporting them from the trenches directly. > DC colocating near new and existing plants along with large inflows of investment into generators. You can get tons of servers in six weeks, install them in two days, and get them running in a day, tops (for us it’s shorter). If you can get your generators manufactured and delivered to your location in a year, you’re lucky.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

https://www.gensler.com/blog/how-communities-can-benefit-from-mixed-use-data-centers https://www.gensler.com/blog/how-communities-can-benefit-fro...

squigz 2y ago
Can you list some benefits of data center usage?