Wow, thank you for the insight. I guess this would be helped somewhat with some of the lighter models being designed, and used locally.
AgilePeanut@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I work in the data center industry—my company designs them.
Traditional IT server racks typically draw about 12 kW of power. Most of this power is converted into heat, so we must provide an equal amount of cooling. These servers must never experience a power failure or overheat, so we use massive generators, battery farms, and chilled water buffer tanks to ensure redundancy.
Now, with the rise of AI, many data centers are undergoing major overhauls. IT racks have gone from drawing 12–15 kW each to 40–100 kW. This represents a huge increase in both weight and power density. As a result, most cooling and electrical systems need to be completely redesigned. Much of the older equipment is being replaced with new infrastructure.
Even a simple Google search now uses up to 10 times more power than before, as AI has been integrated into their search function.
The environmental impact of AI is pretty devastating—I don’t think many people are aware of this.
milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 10 hours ago
octobob@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Yeah. I work for a company that builds the electrical systems for cooling Amazon’s AWS servers in data centers and we are trying to keep up with orders as best we can. They just want more more more, so much that we’re storing them in another warehouse because we don’t have the room here.
They’re projecting orders all the way into 2035 currently.
Landless2029@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I would say we need to adopt more nuclear power but cooling is a massive concern too. For both the power plants and the data centers. Water is often used and idk how much pollution we’re increasing.
AgilePeanut@lemm.ee 21 hours ago
There has been talk of some data centers being built with their own small moduler reactors. I haven’t hear of any actually being built yet and Im sure there would be all sorts of bureaucracy. Would be interesting tho
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
Power consumption before and after AI searches is the same as power consumption for monetary transactions before and after Bitcoin and the likes.
Both technologies suck donkey balls and still haven’t done remotely what they’ve promised and have made everything net worse.
AgilePeanut@lemm.ee 22 hours ago
AI didnt replace cryptocurrency
Merva@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Noone has claimed that.