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Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

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Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#71
post #18

I think that's the datacenter with the gas turbine generators that operate without permits because they're "portable." Data centers have tremendous externalities but colossus is a particularly nasty offender, and not just due its size. Edit: They did it with Colossus and now they're doing the exact same thing with Colossus2. https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

Yup, and now Anthropic is complicit in the environmental damage and health problems for local residents that these data centers are causing. But hey, number must go up, right?

Given how much our EPA has been gutted by the current administration, I don’t think relief is very likely.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#72

Here's a probably stupid question - if someone were unbounded by ethics and conceivably had enough power and connections to power to shield themselves from many consequences of their actions - and that person owned these DCs, could they in theory observe all the streams of tokens coming in and out of these models, and even exfiltrate copies of these models wholesale to have their own teams do what they will with them…

[deleted]

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#73
post #18

I think that's the datacenter with the gas turbine generators that operate without permits because they're "portable." Data centers have tremendous externalities but colossus is a particularly nasty offender, and not just due its size. Edit: They did it with Colossus and now they're doing the exact same thing with Colossus2. https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

Seems like selc's time would be better spent trying to close the loophole that allows for unpermitted turbine generators instead of going after one company for doing what they were allowed to do when they did it.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#74
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the tremendous externality of gas generators? People heat their own homes with natural gas and it's no big deal. How can a datacenter that is miles away be worse than that?

The gas furnace in my basement don't have a massive jet turbine emiting high frequency noise

I wouldn't call noise pollution a "tremendous externality". The gas turbines should just be placed far enough from where people live.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying human blood and mulched skulls are a renewable source of power, I'm just saying . Or maybe they can partner with SoulCycle to power computation with 24/7 spin classes?

And people called the matrix’s human batteries far-fetched.

Always felt like it would've made more sense if it was using part of the peoples' brains to do their computation, as super energy efficient computers.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#76
post #18

I think that's the datacenter with the gas turbine generators that operate without permits because they're "portable." Data centers have tremendous externalities but colossus is a particularly nasty offender, and not just due its size. Edit: They did it with Colossus and now they're doing the exact same thing with Colossus2. https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

The newer location is about 3 miles southwest of the Memphis Airport (MEM), one of the world’s largest cargo airports and the center of FedEx operations (500 take-off and landings per day most concentrated in a 6 h FedEx window with lots of engines running on ramps and that produces about 2000 tons of NOx per year).

I live about 18 miles downwind of the new Colossus sites, the airport, and lots of truck logistics sites, and a large refinery.

I definitely will be getting 2x exposure to ozone and particulates from both Colossi when they are running full bore. Plus an extra dose of ultrafine particulate with my morning fresh air.

Yes, wouldn’t it be nice to be in Nashville instead with HCA, Oracle, many insurance and financial institutions, and the joy of country music.

As an avid Opus user I am in an ethical Nimby bind. We do need almost any investments we can get in Shelby County TN. I’ll take Anthropic in preference to Grok NOx. And it will be my NOx.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could see the first company vertically integrated from etching to chip to data center

What do you mean by etching? Google does also it's own chip design with TPUs, data centers, and models but afaik only TSMC Intel and Samsung do the actual semiconductor fabrication

Assume he's referring to SpaceX's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terafab

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#78

Why is xAI giving up their advantage? Is this a signal that their frontier model improvements are plateauing and decided there is no value in hoarding all their compute?

I think they overestimated the demand for Grok, which is mostly useless, and now they have too much compute on hand.

I see this as a huge warning sign. If a frontier ai lab is in this position of renting their own capacity, imagine how much overcapacity there is in the system.

Outside of VC money, and circular financing, the only external money coming into ai are into open-ai, and anthropic via their subscriptions and APIs.

Re: Anthropic is expanding to Colossus2. Will use GB200

#79
post #20

Very possible Elon is doing this to make give Anthropic better chances against OAI while he attempts to reshape xAI. Also possible he sees infra as the future of xAI if he really believes in the value of space compute. Hard to see this any of this as anything other than a bearish sign for Grok though.

We could see the first company vertically integrated from etching to chip to data center

That's Intel. Probably IBM too, though they've been doing mass manufacturing with TSMC (and GloFo before) for years instead of their fabs. I wouldn't be surprised if HP did similar things back in the 80s.
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