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I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The
by jedberg 1y ago
I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all.
They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs.
The big question is were to build them. There are only a few places with cheap and plentiful power. One of those is Quebec (but it's not that big and there is a lot of regulation). Another is Texas (except their grid isn't very stable). And the last is China. And you can't build a datacenter in China unless you're Chinese.
It'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Maybe the current admin (which is big on deregulation) will make it easier to build power plants, especially nuclear ones.
Edit: I wrote this comment four days ago. I couldn't figure out why I was suddenly getting a bunch of replies to it. Apparently when HN does a second chance, they just reset the time on all the comments. Odd, but I guess it makes sense knowing what I know about how the sorting is calculated. It's probably the easiest way.
- philipallstar 1y agoMaking it easier to build nuclear power stations would be extremely useful. Let's hope nothing of value is lost in that process.
- MadDemon 1y agoPlaces further north are great contenders because of the free cooling. Also, many of them have cheap electricity from hydro or even geothermal, like Iceland.
- general1726 1y agoI bet on natural gas powerplants will start being built together with data centers.
- wmf 1y agoIronically xAI is already doing this.
- joak 1y agoNuclear power plants take something like a decade to build (after permitting) It makes more sense to go for PV plus batteries that can be installed in a matter of weeks
- lukebechtel 1y agohow much of that 10 years is the physical limit, and how much is social / cultural / organizational / political overhead?
- protocolture 1y agoFrom memory, when the brits got out of their own way they could build a nuke plant every 6-8 years.
- adrianN 1y agoDoes that matter much when you want to have a datacenter as quickly as possible? It’s not like those things will change quickly.
- lukebechtel 1y agoyes -- knowing the physical limit can motivate moving closer to it.
- jeffbee 1y ago> after permitting Load-bearing parenthetical! > Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build The most-recently completed fission power station on this planet needed 23 years under construction and it is still in testing. A recent American one took 15 years.
- protocolture 1y agoWhen the brits were at it (With insourced nuclear engineering and low regulatory overhead) they could crank them out every 6 - 8 years. The brits let all that technical capability wither and could not do it again right now. But if someone was willing its still theoretically possible. Just takes total alignment between government and private.
- wmf 1y agoThe Texas grid is stable now that they added batteries BTW.
- jeffbee 1y ago> One of those is Quebec (but it's not that big) Sort of a baffling statement. Quebec is gigantic. It would be a top-20 nation, by extent, if it were a nation.
- jedberg 1y agoQuebec has a lot of empty land. But it does not have a lot of buildable land near plentiful power, super fast internet, and highly skilled technical workers, which are all things you need to build a datacenter.
- debian3 1y agoThere is tons of big power producing electric dams in the middle of nowhere (north of Québec province). It’s also cold most of the year. As far as I know, datacenter doesn’t mean tons of technical workers (except during the building phase). Bringing fiber would not be impossible.
- tw04 1y ago> Maybe the current admin (which is big on deregulation) will make it easier to build power plants, especially nuclear ones. They aren’t big on deregulation at all. They’re big on selective regulation. They’re also big on killing any power project that isn’t oil or coal. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-renewable-energy-transportation-8578da8b985b6d4eef20ec4d85c21b5d https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-renewable-ene... We are in for a painful lesson on why China’s investment in renewables wasn’t just good for their ecology.
- boredatoms 1y agoThere are hydrogen pipelines in texas. There is at least one DC provider using that for power instead of the grid
- jdboyd 1y agoIn my part of PA there are 3 in the process of going in nearby. I think the largest of the 3 is "only" 828 megawatts though. One of the others is supposed to be 300MW, and I'm not sure about the 3rd. There is another group talking about 3 more campuses with a combined power budget of 1.3GW about 55 miles from here. But then while we don't have cheap land, we do have nuclear and hydroelectric in the area, so I guess the makes it attractive.
- jdboyd 1y agoIn m
- sghiassy 1y agoCurious what you think about Oregon. Has a lot of hydroelectric and the nights get super-cold, so you could open the roof for free ventilation
- bob1029 1y agoI think Texas (ERCOT) is a terrible option these days. Meta recently made a fantastic choice by picking Louisiana for their new monster. The MISO grid tends to be cheaper and less volatile than ERCOT.