colloquially today most people mean genAI like LLMs when they say “AI” for brevity.
Because there’s this default assumption that data centers can never be powered by renewable energy
that’s not the point at all. the point is, even before AI, our energy needs have been outpacing our ability/willingness to switch to green energy. We are STILL using more fossil fuels than at any point in the history of the world. Now AI is just adding a whole other layer of energy demand on top of that.
riskable@programming.dev 13 hours ago
The power use from AI is orthogonal to renewable energy. From the news, you’d think that AI data centers have become the number one cause of global warming. Yet, they’re not even in the top 100. Even at the current pace of data center buildouts, they won’t make the top 100… ever.
AI data center power utilization is a regional problem specific to certain localities. It’s a bad idea to build such a data center in certain places but companies do it anyway (for economic reasons that are easy to fix with regulation). It’s not a universal problem across the globe.
Aside: I’d like to point out that the fusion reactor designs currently being built and tested were created using AI. Much of the advancements in that area are thanks to “AI data centers”. If fusion power becomes a reality in the next 50 years it’ll have more than made up for any emissions from data centers. From all of them, ever.