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Oracle cites 'force majeure' to shield itself on controversial data center

155 points · 153 comments · simonpure

  1. WokeUp420 · · focus · HN ↗
    The number of datacenters needing to come online doesn't add up to me. It's suspicious
    1. kilroy123 · · focus · HN ↗
      How so? It's clear the hyperscalers can't keep up with demand.
      1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
        Is it clear they need anything like the unbuilt capacity that is in the pipeline?

        They are using tiny fractions of the data centres they claim to have "built".

        There's a significant risk of a Chinese real-estate bubble here.

        1. kilroy123 · · focus · HN ↗
          What source do you have for "using tiny fractions of the data centres"?

          The money doesn't seem to back this up. Why would Anthropic pay through the nose and make such desperate moves for compute?

          1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
            > Why would Anthropic pay through the nose and make such desperate moves for compute?

            That's pretty consistent with them having not been able to get the physical data centre capacity they have supposedly had built actually online, I think?

            More to the point, Anthropic appears to mostly be capable of serving its customers, doesn't it? It's not so resource-starved that people aren't able to use it at all.

            So what does it tell you that only 300 megawatts was enough to make a very meaningful difference to that?

            If Anthropic's fortunes can be meaningfully changed by only 300MW which allowed them to uncap their customers, what is the case — even including OpenAI and Google -- for the demand for the 23GW of unbuilt AI data centre build commitments out there?

            Satya Nadella himself said there will be some oversupply.

            What if there is actually lots of oversupply?

            My instinct is that the internet/software/IT industry sees its own demand for Anthropic and OpenAI and is misleading itself into thinking that this is representative of customer demand in the rest of the industry, let alone others, when what possible other human industry tasks are there that match the compute demands of writing software?

            Another way to look at it: if the general demand for AI compute is so insatiable, how in this world of existing insatiable demand did xAI have spare capacity to lease? Why does Meta have spare capacity to lease?

            The issue here is very evidently one of allocation. But allocation tends to get solved over time. That could leave quite a lot of very big data centres relatively empty.

            1. jjrjej · · focus · HN ↗
              Open alternatives / routers stand ready to serve routed requests.

              That’s why Altman is burning the excess on those research projects.

              Your take is spot on. Inb4 boosters like echelon come in.

              Oversupply is always going to happen- humanity over invests. When has it ever underinvested? Lmao.

              1. dofm · · focus · HN ↗
                I mean I do think there’s some likely extra demand, though I think it’s likely some demand will fall away from data centres to the desktop.

                (And what you imply is also true, isn’t it - OpenRouter and equivalents will address this demand while also resolving some underlying underutilisation)

                But the claims of awful shortages feel wrong when there’s little evidence of radical undersupply for the two big firms who are offering heavily subsidised plans.

                It all seems pinned on the idea that some compute-guzzling application users clearly don’t have right now will emerge.

              2. grebc · · focus · HN ↗
                It underinvests in quality politicians.
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