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Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

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Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#101

Post by georgemcbay »

nradov wrote: post #97
georgemcbay wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK then I guess we should disconnect every large industrial electricity customer from the grid. No, what we should do is put every "large load" electricity customer (including but not limited to these data centers) into their own rate-payer class like they did in Maryland and Oregon instead of lumping them in with everyone else. Once they are in their own rate-payer class then their rates can be adjusted to pay for…

If they pay the same rates as everyone else then that's not corporate welfare. If the rates are artificially low thus causing shortages then we have a different problem.

> If they pay the same rates as everyone else then that's not corporate welfare.

It is, because the electricity companies don't have magic electricity generating machines that can scale infinitely.

To satisfy the new demand which only exists because the data center was built, they spend a lot of money on new infrastructure. They then raise everyone's prices by an equal percentage to support this new infrastructure even though the infrastructure was not needed until the data center was built.

Not charging the data center developers for that extra build out and expecting everyone to absorb the costs for new infrastructure that never would have been built if the data center wasn't built is absolutely corporate welfare.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#103

Post by otterley »

runako wrote: post #65
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We still need to fix the problem with powering these Datacenters.... Not really. We need to insulate consumers from the market that is solving and will solve that problem. That's a financial engineering and policy problem. America is good at the first. We're bad at the second. That implies state and local initiatives should take the lead. My proposal: one market for essential residential consumption, defined as the…

There should be a tenure element to power access. The reductio is a well-funded adversary should not be able to buy all the power in a region just because they are able to pay more. Our utilities are generally regulated, and have some mandate to provide power to residents. If a datacenter creates a sudden dislocation in the demand for power that causes massive unplanned CapEx by the utility, what is the argument in f…

> There should be a tenure element to power access

We have a tenure-based system for water rights in the Western US, and it's not without its problems. See, e.g., https://www.globalwaterforum.org/2022/11/03/the-paradox-of-u...

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#104

Post by triceratops »

theultdev wrote: post #44
testing22321 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your grandchildren will care if they use coal or natural gas. Aim higher. Do better.

Yes they will, they will prefer natural gas of those two. The main reason of emission reductions as we transition off of coal. I really hope we go all in on nuclear though, with some natural gas and get rid of the windmills. Solar, hydro, geothermal can stay where it makes sense. Unfortunately our skies and land are littered with windmills made out of unrecyclable polymers that are terrible for raptors. Queue someone…

Aah a True Bird Lover. Wants to protect birds from windmills. Doesn't care how many bird habitats oil drilling destroys. Hasn't seen any pictures of oil coated birds from the Exxon Valdez or the Deepwater Horizon.

> made out of unrecyclable polymers

Does this mean you support banning plastic straws too? All plastics are essentially unrecyclable.

> Our kids deserve nuclear.

By all means. If it can be done as cheaply as wind and solar.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#106

Post by bdangubic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42
robotnikman wrote: post #12

We still need to fix the problem with powering these Datacenters....

> We still need to fix the problem with powering these Datacenters.... Not really. We need to insulate consumers from the market that is solving and will solve that problem. That's a financial engineering and policy problem. America is good at the first. We're bad at the second. That implies state and local initiatives should take the lead. My proposal: one market for essential residential consumption, defined as the…

> That implies state and local initiatives should take the lead

You are right... but GOD help us if state and local initiatives take the lead...

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#107

Post by theultdev »

triceratops wrote: post #104
theultdev wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they will, they will prefer natural gas of those two. The main reason of emission reductions as we transition off of coal. I really hope we go all in on nuclear though, with some natural gas and get rid of the windmills. Solar, hydro, geothermal can stay where it makes sense. Unfortunately our skies and land are littered with windmills made out of unrecyclable polymers that are terrible for raptors. Queue someone…

Aah a True Bird Lover. Wants to protect birds from windmills. Doesn't care how many bird habitats oil drilling destroys. Hasn't seen any pictures of oil coated birds from the Exxon Valdez or the Deepwater Horizon . > made out of unrecyclable polymers Does this mean you support banning plastic straws too? All plastics are essentially unrecyclable. > Our kids deserve nuclear. By all means. If it can be done as cheaply…

> Aah a True Bird Lover.

You don't know me, but yes birds are a passion of mine.

I don't particularly like drilling oils and we should transition off.

Does that justify the damage windmills do? No.

> Does this mean you support banning plastic straws too? All plastics are essentially unrecyclable.

https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/CENODS/10027-cover-casper-o...

I support as little waste as possible. Everything adds up. Especially giant windmills.

> By all means. If it can be done as cheaply as wind and solar.

Nuclear is cheap and safe, it's the damn bureaucracy that's expensive.

Let's get real, stop putting up trash, and start boiling water.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#108

Post by runako »

gowld wrote: post #91
runako wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a tenure element to power access. The reductio is a well-funded adversary should not be able to buy all the power in a region just because they are able to pay more. Our utilities are generally regulated, and have some mandate to provide power to residents. If a datacenter creates a sudden dislocation in the demand for power that causes massive unplanned CapEx by the utility, what is the argument in f…

> what is the argument in favor of longtime residents having to pay for that CapEx? The argument is that people like air conditioning and lights, so they will pay, or leave.

If the existing power supply is sufficient to supply the A/C and lights for an area, but a new buyer comes in and offers 10% more $ to purchase all the power currently being generated, there exist also the options of 1) make the new customer pay a lot more to deliver power quickly or 2) simply deny the connection rights (presumably much easier to do when talking about gigawatt-scale requests).

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#109

Post by sunir »

simonw wrote: post #31
sunir wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growth curves mean nothing if you're selling $0.90 dollars. You have to show a growth curve when price > cost. It's not even clear that value > cost. I absolutely love Anthropic; but I am worried about the fiscal wall they will hit that will ratchet up my opex as they will need to steeply raise prices.

So the critical question here really is whether they are selling API access to their models for less than the unit cost it takes to serve them.

You have to include the carrying cost per customer as well which is mostly labour. Most of SaaS undercounts the payroll attached to a subscription which is why it is so hard to get to positive net margins and maintain lifetime value.

I am sceptical an LLM foundation model company can get away with low human services either directly on its own payroll or by giving up margin to a channel of implementation partners. Thats because the go to market requires organizational change on the customer sites. That is a lot of human surface area.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#110

Post by runako »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75
runako wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a tenure element to power access. The reductio is a well-funded adversary should not be able to buy all the power in a region just because they are able to pay more. Our utilities are generally regulated, and have some mandate to provide power to residents. If a datacenter creates a sudden dislocation in the demand for power that causes massive unplanned CapEx by the utility, what is the argument in f…

> should be a tenure element to power access What does this mean? > what is the argument in favor of longtime residents having to pay for that CapEx? Jobs and tax base. These benefit the middle class more than the poor, hence my redistribution proposal.

Data centers notoriously do not bring much in the way of either jobs or tax base.

Meta's planned gigawatt-scale DC in Louisiana is projected to create ~500 jobs. If energy prices for the state increase by only 20%, that does not feel like something the people of the region would obviously want to do if given the choice.

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