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A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

economist.com

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Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#11

Post by wmf »

general1726 wrote: post #7
jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

I bet on natural gas powerplants will start being built together with data centers.

Ironically xAI is already doing this.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#12

Post by wmf »

jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

The Texas grid is stable now that they added batteries BTW.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#13

Post by wmf »

niemandhier wrote: post #4

Energy efficient computing is a very exciting field. I hope it will get more attention driven by these economic constraints. As a short teaser: Landauers principle suggests that the energy required to erase one bit off information is bounded from below by k_B T ln(2). This could lead us down a path towards reversible computing, to avoid energy costs for deleting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s…

The work started around 10-15 years ago and is now largely done. Many people confuse large absolute numbers like 1 kW with inefficiency but today's GPUs/TPUs are close to the practical efficiency limit with today's 3 nm technology.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#14

Post by lukebechtel »

joak wrote: post #8
jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build (after permitting) It makes more sense to go for PV plus batteries that can be installed in a matter of weeks

how much of that 10 years is the physical limit, and how much is social / cultural / organizational / political overhead?

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#15

Post by jeffbee »

jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

> One of those is Quebec (but it's not that big)

Sort of a baffling statement. Quebec is gigantic. It would be a top-20 nation, by extent, if it were a nation.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#16

Post by jeffbee »

joak wrote: post #8
jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build (after permitting) It makes more sense to go for PV plus batteries that can be installed in a matter of weeks

> after permitting

Load-bearing parenthetical!

> Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build

The most-recently completed fission power station on this planet needed 23 years under construction and it is still in testing. A recent American one took 15 years.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#17

Post by jedberg »

jeffbee wrote: post #15
jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

> One of those is Quebec (but it's not that big) Sort of a baffling statement. Quebec is gigantic. It would be a top-20 nation, by extent, if it were a nation.

Quebec has a lot of empty land. But it does not have a lot of buildable land near plentiful power, super fast internet, and highly skilled technical workers, which are all things you need to build a datacenter.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#18

Post by senectus1 »

joak wrote: post #8
jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build (after permitting) It makes more sense to go for PV plus batteries that can be installed in a matter of weeks

South Korea built 13 nuclear reactors in recent decades, with an average construction period of 56 months...

Apparently Japan is the fastest builder (46 months).

the 10 year+ issue is a western problem.

Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise

#20

Post by tw04 »

jedberg wrote: post #2

I worked for a company making GPU clouds. The biggest problem we had for deployments was not getting GPUs -- we had plenty of those sitting in warehouses. The biggest issue was finding data center space with sufficient power and cooling. There was plenty of square footage, just not enough power for it all. They're now building gigawatt datacenters to handle all the GPUs. The big question is were to build them. There…

> Maybe the current admin (which is big on deregulation) will make it easier to build power plants, especially nuclear ones.

They aren’t big on deregulation at all. They’re big on selective regulation. They’re also big on killing any power project that isn’t oil or coal.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-renewable-ene...

We are in for a painful lesson on why China’s investment in renewables wasn’t just good for their ecology.

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