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

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

#41

Post by bronson »

mike_hearn wrote: post #36
skywhopper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

On Earth it has to be fossil fuels. With solar you can't do it. I haven't done the calculations myself so, full disclosure, AI work ahead. But I asked GPT 5.6 how big a solar and battery farm would have to be to power a one gigawatt datacenter such that it could ride out a few cloudy days in a row (this is far below the reliability bar). Its answer is you'd need an "absurdly large battery" and a solar farm of over 10…

Why restrict yourself to 100% solar? Solar augmented by grid is pretty great.

Also, you very conspicuously avoided talking about the difficulty/impact of a 1GW datacenter in space. One might suspect your motives aren't as impartial as you seem to think.

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

#42

Post by gtowey »

ww520 wrote: post #33
skywhopper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

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?

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

#44

Post by ai-x »

henry2023 wrote: post #29
ai-x wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sending to LEO costs around $2,700 usd and 9kWh of fuel per kilogram. If you manage to send a data center with high end processing units, large array of solar panels, even larger liquid cooling and tick shielding against solar rays you’d have spent probably 100x to 1000x the cost of an equivalent earth data center even without considering hardware deprecation. You’re better off sinking your data center deep in the se…

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

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

27183 wrote: post #30
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…

From my limited second-hand understanding of orcl, a team that operates in a smooth and well greased manner is quite the anomaly. I could see why the company would have an immune response to it.

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by Zigurd »

sudonem wrote: post #39
cmiles8 wrote: post #21

Oracle is increasingly looking like the Lehman Brothers of the AI boom. One day it will all go pop and the cards will start crumbling elsewhere in the industry.

Except for the part where Oracle is so deeply embedded into the US government, and Larry Ellison is connected enough that they will be granted any and all bailouts necessary to prevent this (while everyone pretends not to notice that such bailouts are socialism)

He will for sure try. Congressional Republicans seem to be more comfortable going off the rez, tho, even before the year-end deadline for shenanigans.

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

#47

Post by fckgw »

wmf wrote: post #27
skywhopper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

For whatever reason, nobody is trying to build solar-powered AI datacenters. Maybe they can't find enough land.

The space required to install enough solar panels, especially in the places these things are going (like Ohio, where it's NOT ideal for solar generation), would far, far outsize the data center itself by a significant magnitude.

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

#48

Post by Zigurd »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #12

Couldn’t happen to a nicer company

Interviewed there early in my career. The vibe was very much off. Ran into the same vibe many years later when a company that acquired a company I founded got bought by Computer Associates. Places where doing good work and making good things seemed way down the list of priorities. I get the feeling I was pitied for naïveté.

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

#49

Post by overgard »

sudonem wrote: post #39
cmiles8 wrote: post #21

Oracle is increasingly looking like the Lehman Brothers of the AI boom. One day it will all go pop and the cards will start crumbling elsewhere in the industry.

Except for the part where Oracle is so deeply embedded into the US government, and Larry Ellison is connected enough that they will be granted any and all bailouts necessary to prevent this (while everyone pretends not to notice that such bailouts are socialism)

I imagine they'd be split up, and the essential database business would be what's actually bailed out.

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

#50

Post by le-mark »

cmiles8 wrote: post #21

Oracle is increasingly looking like the Lehman Brothers of the AI boom. One day it will all go pop and the cards will start crumbling elsewhere in the industry.

Larry’s son runs paramount now, and given he’s driving it to become the next Fox News challenger, it’s a given the current admin will give them a sweet heart deal.
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