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How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

ourworldindata.org

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Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#51

Post by paulhebert »

sroussey wrote: post #38
fxwin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is saying that they use "so little water and power", just that the average person has no clue about the orders of magnitude at which anything outside of a private household uses these things, including things they previously didn't really have a problem with (like golf courses or almond farms) Most people just hear and their brain goes "damn, that must be a lot, i don't use nearly that much at home"

Water usage for a data center is nowhere near any agricultural use (which is subsidized in California so they aren’t incentivized to change much). Data centers don’t need water at all. It’s just the municipality offering cheaper way to cool by offering water cheaper than power for cooling.

Yes but people need food in order to live

(I think golf courses - and some pools - are quite wasteful and would support tax incentives around them.)

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#52

Post by DWe1 »

Abh1Works wrote: post #39

Something I havent heard alot of people talk about is meat. I dont think you can be against data centers, but also buy cheap meat. I understand food != compute, and thats a fact. BUT the same people who are protesting against AI data centers are the same people who fly every year, eat steak in every other dinner, and generally indulge in activities that are bad for the planet (and theres no acknowledgement).

If you make such claims please back this up with evidence? I, for one, would expect a strong correlation between skepticism against AI data centers, vegetarianism and the preference for alternative travel methods to flying. Your comment sounds a lot like whataboutism to me.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#53

Post by paulhebert »

ggreer wrote: post #36
xnx wrote: post #8

Our World in Data is great, but this article would've been improved if it offered a chart that offered a comparison to it's leading "1.5% of global electricity number". For example: 7% to 10% of all global electricity is consumed by air conditioning. It's not hard to think of relatively small interventions that could save 1.5% of global energy use annually.

Increasing global electricity production by 1.5% (or 500 terawatt-hours) would also be a solution. Production from solar power increased by 600TWh from 2024-2025 and its rate of adoption is increasing as costs go down, so this doesn't seem like a problem worth worrying about.

The problem is we need to be reducing our use of highly polluting energy sources and shifting to renewable sources.

The more our energy use increases the harder it is to do so.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#54

Post by dundarious »

gruez wrote: post #47
dundarious wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to AI in that statement, I wrote it somewhat poorly.

The "hardly use" comparison quickly runs into issues, though. If I use AI and it completes a job that would have taken an hour in 1 minute, should that be counted as a factor against AI, because I'm "hardly" using it (1 minute) compared to the alternative (1 hour)?

It was written in a specific context:

> [AI] that most people hardly use at all

and while ambiguous, I meant that quantifying the number of people that use it, results in a not large number. I've had discussions in other threads about how to talk about transitive use, etc., so as with everything at all times, there are certainly ways to skin the cat that justify or invalidate the statement. One has to rely upon good judgment to decide which way is best, and reasonable people may disagree.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#55

Post by jagged-chisel »

palmotea wrote: post #34
shipman05 wrote: post #10

I'm dismayed by the current political discourse on this topic. Seems like the two camps are 1) let mega corps build data centers with impunity or 2) use NIMBY tactics to oppose them in all cases. I want to see a pro-growth approach that makes the mega corps assume the costs of their negative externalities. I want to see an increased build out of renewable and nuclear energy sources. I want to see environmental protec…

I am pro-AI datacenters. I just think they should all be built in Atherton and the Hamptons, with the stipulation they're only allowed to be built adjacent to the most expensive residential property in the area, in the way of its most impressive view.

"In the way of"? How about ... as an enhancement of the most impressive views.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#56

Post by dundarious »

sroussey wrote: post #43
dundarious wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company is using it? The deli and the laundromat too? Every consumer? Maybe transitively because they use Google or what have you, but most people I know still don't really know what AI is, never mind have a puritan revulsion over using it (some people are quite performative about this on here), but they just don't use it themselves, except transitively on occasion.

Everyone using Google. Watching Netflix. Listening to Spotify. Shopping at Amazon or a Shopify store. Or reading almost anything these days. :( Advertising they see. Using a credit card, writing a check. Beam forming wireless signals. It’s everywhere. Not all AI is an LLM.

Was the 2% figure counting all those things? I don't think so. This is changing the grounds of the discussion. Ridiculously so. Do you take me for some zealot who hates tensors or matrices or something? I don't even hate LLMs, though I have huge issues with how data has been gathered. I feel like this discussion is useless.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#57

Post by sroussey »

paulhebert wrote: post #51
sroussey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water usage for a data center is nowhere near any agricultural use (which is subsidized in California so they aren’t incentivized to change much). Data centers don’t need water at all. It’s just the municipality offering cheaper way to cool by offering water cheaper than power for cooling.

Yes but people need food in order to live (I think golf courses - and some pools - are quite wasteful and would support tax incentives around them.)

Then subsidize food directly rather than via water.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#58

Post by sroussey »

dundarious wrote: post #56
sroussey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone using Google. Watching Netflix. Listening to Spotify. Shopping at Amazon or a Shopify store. Or reading almost anything these days. :( Advertising they see. Using a credit card, writing a check. Beam forming wireless signals. It’s everywhere. Not all AI is an LLM.

Was the 2% figure counting all those things? I don't think so. This is changing the grounds of the discussion. Ridiculously so. Do you take me for some zealot who hates tensors or matrices or something? I don't even hate LLMs, though I have huge issues with how data has been gathered. I feel like this discussion is useless.

Look at Meta’s capital budget and tell me people aren’t using AI. People use Facebook, Instagram, etc. I’d say the same for Google, but with Google Cloud it’s hard to know where the dollars are going and for whom.

Who exactly is the 2% figure? Can’t all be HN people on side projects using Claude code.

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#59

Post by paulhebert »

sroussey wrote: post #57
paulhebert wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but people need food in order to live (I think golf courses - and some pools - are quite wasteful and would support tax incentives around them.)

Then subsidize food directly rather than via water.

[dead]

Re: How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?

#60

Post by dundarious »

sroussey wrote: post #58
dundarious wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the 2% figure counting all those things? I don't think so. This is changing the grounds of the discussion. Ridiculously so. Do you take me for some zealot who hates tensors or matrices or something? I don't even hate LLMs, though I have huge issues with how data has been gathered. I feel like this discussion is useless.

Look at Meta’s capital budget and tell me people aren’t using AI. People use Facebook, Instagram, etc. I’d say the same for Google, but with Google Cloud it’s hard to know where the dollars are going and for whom. Who exactly is the 2% figure? Can’t all be HN people on side projects using Claude code.

A lot of it is training, not inference, right? I really do think the vast majority of use is HN Claude Code, with some lawyers, etc., preparing initial draft emails that they rewrite, sprinkled on top.

As for capex implying high usage, look at xAI's capex and how it turns out most of it is now being rented out to Google, etc. High capex does not imply capex that has already found its customers and margins. Meta is an extraordinarily bad example to use, given the failure of the whole metaverse/VR thing that is now their name, but is completely vestigial.

Have a good afternoon.

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