Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#101

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

panny wrote: post #52

gtowey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that building out space infrastructure is a less hard problem to solve than bribing a few local governments to get some building permits?

>a less hard problem to solve than bribing a few local governments Wouldn't it be best if the data centers were just... good neighbors? Like everyone talking about illegal bribes and impossible moonshots when the answer is just don't suck?

The general problem is that we've made construction suck for a while now and people are suddenly paying attention to it but only in the case of data centers.

You don't get caught paying bribes if government officials aren't accepting bribes. The problem is the governments have been operating in a mode where blocking everything is the default and paying bribes is the expected way for things to get approved.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#102

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #99

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only data centers had some kind of backup systems to prevent power interruptions, like inverters with batteries attached to them. They could call it an Uninterruptible Power Supply and then charge the batteries when other power is available and run on them when it isn't.

UPSes are designed to run for minutes not hours. I guess enough Megapacks to run overnight would be more expensive than gas generators.

If grid storage batteries are economical in the general case then why wouldn't they be doubly so in a place where the inverters are a sunk cost and you're saving the transmission costs because the load is at the same site as the batteries?

The competition isn't the cost of generators, it's the cost of grid power, or the cost of operating gas generators every day.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#103

Post by rented_mule » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #100

rented_mule wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the difficulty of a 1GW datacenter in space? Simple back of the envelope calculations? Let's assume your numbers are correct and that panels in space can generate 10x the power per square meter per 24 hour period (due to efficiency, lack of night, and lack of atmosphere/weather). That means 10 KM^2 are needed for one such data center. The largest we've built in space is ~3,000 M^2 on the ISS. So one of these…

The whole thing does assume Starship works, so at that point satellites could be launched much faster. I assume Starmind would use Tesla designed chips, which removes Nvidia's margin and so the cost of the chips is not necessarily so high. Rad hardening isn't important at low altitudes, and inferencing can smoothly recover from glitched calculations/lockups. I don't know if it makes economic sense or ever will, but t…

In terms of what we decide to build, impossible vs. impractical is not a particularly interesting distinction (that distinction can give rise to fun science fiction). Practicality is at the core of good engineering, and possibility is just the first of many steps in evaluating practicality.

If we're going with a distributed approach, there are other ideas that are more practical. For example, send 1 KW boxes to a million people (< 1% of American homes, but there's no reason to limit this to the US). Very roughly, these are beefed-up gaming consoles - you could even start with existing gaming consoles. That box plugs into electricity and ethernet. Pay each of those people $1,000 a month to leave their box running 24/7. For people with a lot of solar at home, it could be a nice income stream. At $1B per year for payouts, it's far cheaper than doing it in orbit. And it doesn't rely on promised but as-yet undelivered technologies. But data centers are probably more practical.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#104

Post by ww520 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

jonlucc wrote: post #53

ww520 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space DC make sense when local governments and communities don't want DC built on Earth. Space DC is an engineering and finance problem, not a problem in legal/permission, real estate, power generation, grid delivery, environmental, etc.

Isn't it still far simpler and cheaper to build and maintain a DC in the most rural parts of North America than to launch it to space?

You still need to build the power infrastructure to the rural areas. Build the infrastructure for the people, like roads, sewage, water, buildings, etc. Navigate the regulation and permit processes.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#105

Post by ww520 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

gtowey wrote: post #42

ww520 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space DC make sense when local governments and communities don't want DC built on Earth. Space DC is an engineering and finance problem, not a problem in legal/permission, real estate, power generation, grid delivery, environmental, etc.

You think that building out space infrastructure is a less hard problem to solve than bribing a few local governments to get some building permits?

You missed the lawsuits by everyone else.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#106

Post by ai-x » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 10:24 PM UTC

ZoneZealot wrote: post #55

ai-x wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://youtu.be/FKHENV75b9Q?si=JFBsT2HinR02AI4P

I mean if we're replying with videos at this point, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg

One is actually building while the other is making Youtube videos. Also the video literally answers the economic question.

I'm happy with my bet

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#107

Post by kishkash » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

ai-x wrote: post #106

ZoneZealot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if we're replying with videos at this point, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg

One is actually building while the other is making Youtube videos. Also the video literally answers the economic question. I'm happy with my bet

[dead]

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#108

Post by ponector » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 11:01 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #10

Oracle cannot possibly be expecting to meet its bets here. My own empirical one-person observation is that my friend worked there in the group that went around the world standing up their new cloud datacenters, and he was there from basically 2019 to earlier this year. They laid him and half his team off earlier this year. Absolutely nonsensical if they're really building out cloud data centers. Because that's exactl…

They said with AI nowadays less people can do more, be more productive than ever!

/s

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#109

Post by treis » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #96

treis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the time you get 0 solar power.

If only data centers had some kind of backup systems to prevent power interruptions, like inverters with batteries attached to them. They could call it an Uninterruptible Power Supply and then charge the batteries when other power is available and run on them when it isn't.

Not nearly big enough for data centers approaching 1 GW. Largest is 3 GWH which gets you 3ish hours.

Theoretically you can put as many batteries together but it'd be enormously expensive and run into the same supply chain issues.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#110

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

treis wrote: post #109

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only data centers had some kind of backup systems to prevent power interruptions, like inverters with batteries attached to them. They could call it an Uninterruptible Power Supply and then charge the batteries when other power is available and run on them when it isn't.

Not nearly big enough for data centers approaching 1 GW. Largest is 3 GWH which gets you 3ish hours. Theoretically you can put as many batteries together but it'd be enormously expensive and run into the same supply chain issues.

Anything using 1GW of power is going to be "enormously expensive". The all-in cost of a 1GW data center is on the order of $50 billion. A billion dollars in storage batteries is ~2% of the cost, which is completely reasonable.

~1600 GWh of lithium batteries are produced each year and hundreds of GWh/year of production capacity have been added in each of the last few years, so ~12 GWh isn't going to upend the market.