Comment on Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal

FlowVoid@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Datacenter != AI

  Except the demand for new data centers is driven entirely by the capacity constraints of the current AI models.

  If you are using the internet for anything with cloud storage, you are contributing to datacenter growth.

  “Why are you mad at my SUV when you just adopted a pet chihuahua? They both emit carbon!”

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  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m not sure that’s true. Every company uses storage, and every growing company needs more. But very few companies are training generative AIs.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Every company uses storage, and every growing company needs more.

      You’re comparing mountains to molehills. That’s before you consider improvements in storage and compression relative to demands for space, or the degree to which our storage capacity “needs” are predicated on the voracious appetite of AI models and their unwanted output. Or, for that matter, the inefficient distribution of data and proliferation of spam data that predates it.

      very few companies are training generative AIs

      Most US Growth Now Rides on AI—And Economists Suspect a Bubble

      The expansion in demand is entirely being driven by the expansion in AI capacity.

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      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That article doesn’t say what you imply it does. Companies may be using ChatGPT to grow, but that doesn’t mean they are training AIs.

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• SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This would be 99% of businesses at this point.

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• balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yes but data center growth prior to AI was manageable. There isn’t a grid on the planet (except maybe china?) which can support the growth of AI data centers.

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  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    china is also building lots of coal plants to sustain the datacenters.

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    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      China already has 200% the capacity relative to their demand. They’ve been growing solar fast enough to beat very high 8%+ electricity consumption growth last year, and can probably keep the pace.

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  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The bitcoin miners have hopefully dropped off because they were chewing up gobs of energy too.

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    • balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I thought they were totally just using flare gas and renewables ;) 🙄

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• kcuf@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sure but energy use per datacenters was on a downward trend before ai, then it went the other way hard

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