Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. BearOso · 1791154950 · focus · HN ↗

      The disparity is that older data centers were for storing and serving data. They have a lot of bandwidth and storage, but aren't consuming much energy. Plus, they are there to provide quicker access to data, to provide a service to actual people.

      New AI data centers are obviously compute-oriented instead. That means they consume a lot more power, like hundreds of megawatts. For perspective, on average a U.S. household uses only 1.2KW. Because of this, cooling needs are significantly increased, and while water usage is often overblown, noise volume is a major problem. At (edit) 10m, it often exceeds the 90dB threshold for hearing loss.

      Then there's the fact that millions of dollars of GPUs are inside these things, so security means lots of bright lights at all times of day.

      These are just problems with the physical presence of a data center, not to mention the electric bill hikes, land value loss, environmental effects, etc. And there's no obvious positives to one going up. No new jobs. No tax money because it's often elided with incentives from bribing local officials.

      With all the negatives and seemingly no benefits, ask yourself who wants these data centers, and why? If the only way to improve AI is using more and more compute like this, what is the end-game?

      1. sillysaurusx · 1791160437 · focus · HN ↗

         1.2kw over what time period?

         1. vengefulduck · 1791160730 · focus · HN ↗

            Watts is already a unit of energy over time. (J/s)

            1. SecretDreams · 1791160947 · focus · HN ↗

               Aka it's a unit of power. Hence the OP asked over what time to figure out the amount of energy used..?

               1. lostlogin · 1791161920 · focus · HN ↗

                  Surely that is the average usage over time? 28.8kWh per day?

                  Edit: The average household in the U.S. uses 10500kWh of power per year. 28.76kWh per day.

                  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;energyexplained&#x2F;use-of-energy&#x2F;electricity-use-in-homes.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;energyexplained&#x2F;use-of-energy&#x2F;electricit...

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.