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More than the residential use of some entire cities. This is a misleading comparison. "AI data centers" aren't a residential use, they're much closer to an in
by Majromax 2y ago
More than the residential use of some entire cities.
This is a misleading comparison. "AI data centers" aren't a residential use, they're much closer to an industrial one, and they should be considered on that basis.
In comparison, a 2007 report on the US Aluminum industry (https://www1.eere.energy.gov/manufacturing/resources/aluminum/pdfs/al_theoretical.pdf#page=114 https://www1.eere.energy.gov/manufacturing/resources/aluminu...) (aluminum is a particularly heavy user of electricity, since its main processes are electric-driven and not chemical/combustion like steel) notes that the US industry used 90e9 kWh/yr in 2003. That's 10GW of power on a continuous basis, comparable to the data center usage discussed in the article.
An exact comparison is more difficult because the article discusses a number of individual projects, without aggregating them over time.
Is this projected energy usage good? I don't know, but the statement that "AI will be as important to the United States as the aluminum industry" doesn't seem too outlandish.
- dghlsakjg 2y agoIt also assumes no progress in power efficiency during inference. If the price of OpenAIs mini models are indicative of compute, and therefore, energy usage, I would be surprised if we didn’t see a lot of similar energy optimized models in the future.
- Teever 2y agoYeah but Jevons paradox. Computing as a whole has become a lot more efficient compared to say 30 years ago but globally certainly use a lot more compute to make up for that increase in efficiency.
- appplication 2y agoYeah I don’t believe for a second that we’re going to ever see a net decrease in AI energy use during our lifetimes at this point. Besides, the point of discussing this isn’t that AI isn’t efficient enough, it’s that there is a clear path to it consuming absolutely massive amounts of energy, and that will continue to scale at an increasing rate indefinitely. This is a reality we need to expect and plan for. Substantial investments must be made - today - in renewable energy production and storage to meet new demand.