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In a first, Google has released data on how much energy an AI prompt uses
(www.technologyreview.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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This doesn't really track with companies commissioning power plants to support power usage of AI training demand
It does if you consider that they are actually building them to support power usage of datacenters. And that datacenters are used for a lot more than just AI training.
Oh, sorry I forgot that data centers were just invented. Thanks for the reminder!
No you're right, they built the first one, all the demand that could ever be needed is covered by it, and there's no reason to ever build any more.
Yet they've never needed to commission power plants to dedicate power to these facilities. It's almost like there's some new, uniquely power-hungry demand that's driving this that's sprung up in the last 5 or so years...
huh? every data center i've been to has hundreds of megawatts of stand-by power generation which is regularly used to take up slack, because data center loads are peaky as hell. when facebook was building their first european datacenter in 2012 they were heavily criticised for their planned local power infrastructure, which was and still is diesel generators. the one being built in my area, which is a colo, has planned for over 700MW of local generation despite being built next to multiple hydro dams.
Never?