How AI labs are solving the power problem • Hacker News Board

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#41

Post by HPsquared » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #34

imglorp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the air quality around these plants is poor, leading to health problems for the neighbors. This short term, destructive, thinking should be criminalized. I think it's time to discuss changing the incentives around ai deployment, specifically paying into a ubi fund whenever human jobs are replaced by ai. Musk himself raised the idea. https://www.indexbox.io/blog/tech-leaders-push-for-universal...

I assumed gas plants are pretty good in terms of air quality? Coal plants are bad.

It depends on if they treat the exhaust to remove nitrogen oxides. Not sure what the standard is for this kind of plant though.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#42

Post by wyldfire » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

einrealist wrote: post #33

goda90 wrote: post #3

Power problem: solved Natural Gas supply problem: worsened Carbon in the atmosphere problem: worsened

The word 'pollution' appears exactly one time in this entire thing, the word 'community' or 'communities' never.

The only way to solve problems like this IMO is to price in the externalities. Tax fossil fuels for the damage they do, in order to reveal their true cost. Then they will never look like the most affordable option, because they're not.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#43

Post by condensedcrab » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

pingou wrote: post #4

What about renewables + battery storage? Does it take much longer to build? I can imagine getting a permit can take quite a long time, but what takes so long to set up solar panels and link them to batteries, without even having to connect them to the grid?

The density required for solar is also much lower - the coordination between different land parcels and routing power and getting easements increases the time required vs. on prem gas turbines.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#44

Post by biddit » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

The dialog around AI resource use is frustratingly inane, because the benefits are never discussed in the same context.

LLMs/diffusers are inefficient from a traditional computing perspective, but they are also the most efficient technology humanity has created:

> AI systems (ChatGPT, BLOOM, DALL-E2, Midjourney) and human individuals performing equivalent writing and illustrating tasks. Our findings reveal that AI systems emit between 130 and 1500 times less CO2e per page of text generated compared to human writers, while AI illustration systems emit between 310 and 2900 times less CO2e per image than their human counterparts.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54271-x

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#45

Post by zzzeek » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

> However, AI infrastructure cannot wait for the grid’s multiyear transmission upgrades. An AI cloud can generate revenue of $10-12 billion dollars per gigawatt, annually. Getting a 400 MW datacenter online even six months earlier is worth billions. Economic need dwarfs problems like an overloaded electric grid. The industry is already searching for new solutions.

wow, that's some logic. Environmentally unsound means of extracting energy directly damage the ecosystem in which humans need to live. The need for a functioning ecosystem "dwarfs" "problems" like billionaires not making enough billions. Fixing a ruined ecosystem would cost many more billions than whatever economic revenue the AI generated while ruining it. So if you're not harnessing the sun or wind (forget about the latter in the US right now, btw), you're burning things, and you can get lost with that.

This kind of short sighted thinking is because when folks like this talk about generating billions of dollars of worth, their cerebellums are firing up as they think of themselves personally as billionaires, corrupting their overall thought processes. We really need to tax billionaires out of existence.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#46

Post by dale_glass » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #31

FergusArgyll wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare a training run that produces a file which can be run forever after to a human day

Inference itself is also very costly! But either way, how many human lives are spent making that file?

Not really.

I can generate images or get LLM answers in below 15 seconds on mundane hardware. The image generator draws many times faster than any normal person, and the LLM even on my consumer hardware still produces output faster than I can type (and I'm quite good at that), let alone think what to type.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#47

Post by geetee » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

Title should be "AI labs are raping the planet"

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#48

Post by throw10920 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #24

Aurornis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is coming from a group that does analysis on the semiconductor and cloud industries and provided very expensive access to their models and info. They are the citation.

So I guess it’s not a bubble then since these companies are raking in the big revenues? Or maybe they are counting all those circular investments as revenues somehow?

You can make a lot of money but still be in a bubble if speculation is significantly higher than (actual or potential) revenue.

I think that's most people's assumption. It's not that AI is worthless, but that it's significantly less valuable than investors are betting on.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#49

Post by miltonlost » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #28

goda90 wrote: post #3

Power problem: solved Natural Gas supply problem: worsened Carbon in the atmosphere problem: worsened

The natural gas turbines used are relatively efficient as far as engines go. Having them on-site makes transmission losses basically negligible. Nothing short of full solar connected to batteries produced without any difficult to mine elements will make some people happy, but as far as pollution and fuel consumption data centers aren’t really a global concern at the same level as things like transportation.

> as far as pollution and fuel consumption data centers aren’t really a global concern at the same level as things like transportation.

Same level doesn't remove the concern for this unnecessary pollution. Stop changing the subject from the environmental problems that AI usage can have by their increased power consumption.

Natural gas engines are efficient!

Ok! But what about the pollution they produce to nearby neighborhoods? What about the health repercussions? Do human lives not matter?

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#50

Post by torginus » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

goda90 wrote: post #3

Power problem: solved Natural Gas supply problem: worsened Carbon in the atmosphere problem: worsened

And imagine all this poorly located, overpriced, haphazardly thrown together and polluting infrastructure will basically get flushed down the toilet once either the AI bubble pops, or they figure out a new way of doing AI that doesn't require terawatts of power.