4 ms·
I don't understand why datacenters especially shouldn't be able to run mostly on renewables. This won't apply to every datacenter, but the AI inference ones es
by hvb2 4mo ago
I don't understand why datacenters especially shouldn't be able to run mostly on renewables.
This won't apply to every datacenter, but the AI inference ones especially, should be seeing most demand during the day. So what's built in north America is used when it's daylight there?
If so, isn't that a perfect case for solar?
To be clear, I'm not saying it can power down, but at night it should be able to scale down significantly?
- p1necone 4mo ago> should be seeing most demand during the day I don't know if this is necessarily true - latency isn't really important for inference in the same way as many other services (at least the max ~300ms latency you get from hitting something on the other side of the globe) - compute in NA can serve all the other timezones just fine.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- drysine 4mo agoThe most of the cost is GPU, not power. Demand for AI is global (except for Anthropic, haha). When you build a DC that works only when the sun is shining, you are wasting half of you GPU capacity
- rwyinuse 4mo agoThat's why you build batteries that can store electricity for the other half. Or maybe nuclear power.
- frollogaston 4mo agoThe batteries are expensive. Otherwise I'd expect to see wholesale electricity prices fluctuate a lot less.