Data centers powering artificial intelligence could use more electricity than entire cities

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-24 22:38:56 | Updated at 2024-11-25 00:14:49 1 hour ago

Data centers powering artificial intelligence could use more electricity than entire cities
CNBC ^ | 11/24/2024 | Spencer Kimball

Posted on 11/24/2024 2:29:16 PM PST by DFG

The power needs of artificial intelligence and cloud computing are growing so large that individual data center campuses could soon use more electricity than some cities, and even entire U.S. states, according to companies developing the facilities.

The electricity consumption of data centers has exploded along with their increasingly critical role in the economy in the past 10 years, housing servers that power the applications businesses and consumers rely on for daily tasks.

Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, data centers are growing so large that finding enough power to drive them and enough suitable land to house them will become increasingly difficult, the developers say. The facilities could increasingly demand a gigawatt or more of power — one billion watts — or about twice the residential electricity consumption of the Pittsburgh area last year.

Technology companies are in a “race of a lifetime to global dominance” in artificial intelligence, said Ali Fenn, president of Lancium, a company that secures land and power for data centers in Texas. “It’s frankly about national security and economic security,” she said. “They’re going to keep spending” because there’s no more profitable place to deploy capital.

Renewable energy alone won’t be sufficient to meet their power needs. Natural gas will have to play a role, developers say, which will slow progress toward meeting carbon dioxide emissions targets.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...

TOPICS: Business/Economy
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1 posted on 11/24/2024 2:29:16 PM PST by DFG

To: DFG

There’s something else going on here besides this artificial intelligence can’t even reason

2 posted on 11/24/2024 2:32:04 PM PST by butlerweave

To: DFG

Interesting i just asked Perplexity how much electricity it uses to answer just one question.

here is the answer.

According to recent calculations, ChatGPT uses approximately 0.0029 kilowatt-hours of electricity to answer a single question, which is nearly ten times more energy than a typical Google search that consumes about 0.0003 kilowatt-hours per query.

3 posted on 11/24/2024 2:32:05 PM PST by Responsibility2nd (Climate Change is Real. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.)

To: DFG

“Renewable energy alone won’t be sufficient to meet their power needs.”

Oh, Spencer, come on! Everybody knows the Unicorn Fart Generator is going to do the job.

4 posted on 11/24/2024 2:32:47 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (Republicans are the party that says ‘Government doesn’t work.’ Then they get elected and prove it.)

To: Responsibility2nd

At a high rate of 25¢/kWh, the cost of the power to answer one question is 0.000725 cents.

5 posted on 11/24/2024 2:35:08 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (Republicans are the party that says ‘Government doesn’t work.’ Then they get elected and prove it.)

To: DFG

Which is why Microsoft is buying Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant and renewing its license.

Enough power there to power two cities

I am not exactly crazy about Microsoft owning a power plant but I am glad that the plant is not being decommissioned

6 posted on 11/24/2024 2:38:09 PM PST by Pontiac (esse welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)

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