Thread

Oracle on the hook to pay data centre investors even if site has no electricity

158 points · 154 comments · Betelbuddy

peri-cl · 1790334571 · focus · HN ↗
I'm very curious what happens now to the several gigawatts of fuel cells, that this project supposedly purchased to supply power.
> "Oracle signed a deal with solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Bloom last year for 1.8GW of power, expanding it to 2.8GW of capacity in April."
<a href="https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/new-mexico-regulators-reject-natural-gas-pipeline-for-oracles-25gw-project-jupiter-data-center/" rel="nofollow">https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/new-mexico-regula...
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Energy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Energy
I was surprised to read we're already building fuel cell power plants on this scale (this is a first of its kind project—by far this startup's largest customer). I didn't realize the tech was that mature. Now I'm left wondering if they actually ever intended to, or whether this was some kind of circular financial-engineering vaporware.
1. mynti · 1790339250 · focus · HN ↗
  The tech has always been mature enough but simply too expensive. But since combustion engines are sold out for the next years, data centers are rushing to get anything they can. So the extra millions for power generation will be a rounding error
  1. onlyrealcuzzo · 1790339598 · focus · HN ↗
    Electricity is about 3% of their total operating cost, so, yes.
    walthamstow · 1790340889 · focus · HN ↗
    Electricity is only 3% of opex for a data centre?
    pjc50 · 1790341249 · focus · HN ↗
    That seems surprising - source? What's the other 97%? Does this include ops staff?
    nomorewords · 1790341754 · focus · HN ↗
    Without having done any research at this point I would assume it's mostly the amortized cost of hardware - GPUs, memory etc
    pjc50 · 1790341920 · focus · HN ↗
    That's capex not opex!
    doikor · 1790341994 · focus · HN ↗
    The stuff inside the buildings (servers, switches, storage, cooling, etc) basically the stuff using the electricity and salaries/sub contractors (in addition to some techs handling the servers think security, cleaning, storage management, receiving shipments of new hardware, etc). Some taxes (depends a lot where)
    simon-b · 1790342030 · focus · HN ↗
    I saw a breakdown (don't have on hand sorry) where server depreciation was by far the majority. Power was the largest cash opex, probably matching your intuition.
    fedecaccia · 1790343375 · focus · HN ↗
    The cost of electricity is (almost) negligible compared to the cost of having GPUs sitting idle. Electricity from fuel cells can be twice as expensive, but even then, it represents only about an extra ~15% of the amortization cost associated with keeping the GPU hardware idle.
    simiones · 1790346810 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not an operating cost, it's capital cost.
    chorizo · 1790352027 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, but given the 3-5 year lifespan of the server infra capex, the separation becomes less meaningful. Better to count the entire TCO or discounted cashflow accounting for the rapid asset depreciation.
    hylaride · 1790343899 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no way it's 3% if they're getting electricity from the grid, even if they get their cooling from somewhere else (eg lake/river water or outside air in winter). Median DCs are anywhere from 25-40% (depending on the jurisdiction's electricity costs and how much cooling they need). Hypercaler datacenters tend to be even more dense than the median traditional ones.
    FuriouslyAdrift · 1790343992 · focus · HN ↗
    Energy is the largest OPEX by far (70-80%)... taxes second.
    <a href="https://epoch.ai/data-insights/ai-datacenter-cost-breakdown" rel="nofollow">https://epoch.ai/data-insights/ai-datacenter-cost-breakdown
    cyanydeez · 1790345305 · focus · HN ↗
    Anyone who puts a local model on a GPU understands how much heat they produce.
    Its amusing watching cloud AI users struggle to grasp even direct impacts of their use.
    onlyrealcuzzo · 1790351711 · focus · HN ↗
    That's if you don't count hardware amortization - which is 80% of the cost...
    FuriouslyAdrift · 1790359968 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not OPEX, that's CAPEX and tangible assets are depreicated not amortized.
  2. dfedbeef · 1790346543 · focus · HN ↗
    I would think someone would have run those numbers first.
    lazide · 1790351287 · focus · HN ↗
    No time to think, go go go.
    MengerSponge · 1790351295 · focus · HN ↗
    You would think, right?
    augment_me · 1790354697 · focus · HN ↗
    If the numbers dont add up it's fucked anyways who cares just send it
    Also worst comes to worst government will have to bail them out to not cause massive unrest
    red-iron-pine · 1790358662 · focus · HN ↗
    someone did, determined it would make them look bad, and pawned the assignment off to a junior executive to take the blame.
    if it works then they delegated successfully and the project is winning and if not then they blame the neophyte VP and walk away with another quarterly bonus anyway.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.