3 ms·

What’s wrong with this perspective? Why are the scale of incumbents not part of these stories?

by ttyprintk 2y ago

jiggawatts 2y ago
"Industrial activity requires inputs" is not news, not even remotely. We don't have Star Trek replicators and free energy. "Data centre uses water for cooling" is also not news, not in the slightest, in any way, shape or form. It's how it's done. It's how it's been done for decades, at a huge scale, but that scale is absolutely dwarfed by... checks notes... everything else. Literally just the leaks in municipal water pipes use more water than a data centre. "ChatGPT uses a lot of water" is either a hit-piece, or a failed journalist desperately trying to make a non-story into something that'll get eyeballs. I guess they succeeded. PS: That, or they're simply innumerate. The general population is! Teraliters, gigaliters, megaliters, they all sound big, ya know? PPS: Some numbers! Sydney Water lost 25,700 megaliters to leaks in that one city per year. A "hyperscaler" data centre uses up to 750 megaliters per year for cooling. Azure uses maybe 10% of their cooling capacity for ChatGPT, but I suspect it's a lot less. That's... what.. 75 megaliters per year per data centre? Water pipe leaks are wasting 340x as much as AI compute, which is a useful software product. Water leaks are pure waste. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-s-water-goes-down-the-drain-20191217-p53kw5.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-... and https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/ https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Totally agree. Both water and electricity have fugitive problems. Sydney has an interesting application: capturing an iceberg and towing it to one part of the harbor. At that point, waste heat from a data center could be useful in melting it into the water system.

3 ms·

What’s wrong with this perspective? Why are the scale of incumbents not part of these stories?

by ttyprintk 2y ago

What’s wrong with this perspective? Why are the scale of incumbents not part of these stories?

jiggawatts 2y ago
"Industrial activity requires inputs" is not news, not even remotely. We don't have Star Trek replicators and free energy. "Data centre uses water for cooling" is also not news, not in the slightest, in any way, shape or form. It's how it's done. It's how it's been done for decades, at a huge scale, but that scale is absolutely dwarfed by... checks notes... everything else. Literally just the leaks in municipal water pipes use more water than a data centre. "ChatGPT uses a lot of water" is either a hit-piece, or a failed journalist desperately trying to make a non-story into something that'll get eyeballs. I guess they succeeded. PS: That, or they're simply innumerate. The general population is! Teraliters, gigaliters, megaliters, they all sound big, ya know? PPS: Some numbers! Sydney Water lost 25,700 megaliters to leaks in that one city per year. A "hyperscaler" data centre uses up to 750 megaliters per year for cooling. Azure uses maybe 10% of their cooling capacity for ChatGPT, but I suspect it's a lot less. That's... what.. 75 megaliters per year per data centre? Water pipe leaks are wasting 340x as much as AI compute, which is a useful software product. Water leaks are pure waste. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-s-water-goes-down-the-drain-20191217-p53kw5.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-... and https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/ https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Totally agree. Both water and electricity have fugitive problems. Sydney has an interesting application: capturing an iceberg and towing it to one part of the harbor. At that point, waste heat from a data center could be useful in melting it into the water system.