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Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

anthropic.com

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Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#81

Post by LunaSea »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61
joelthelion wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good questions, I don't claim to have all the answers. What I'm saying is that using gigawatts of power for "AI" in this day and age is madness. I do like the market insulation idea you propose in another comment (I would link to it, but apparently HN doesn't allow that).

> What I'm saying is that using gigawatts of power for "AI" in this day and age is madness Why? American datacentres--of all types--use about 250 TWh per year, with another 500 TWh additional capacity expected by 2030 [1]. American paper manufacturing used about that much energy in 2018 [2]. [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/indus…

Yes but American datacenters and industries are actually useful compared to AI.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#82

Post by pama »

joelthelion wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I'm saying is that using gigawatts of power for "AI" in this day and age is madness Why? American datacentres--of all types--use about 250 TWh per year, with another 500 TWh additional capacity expected by 2030 [1]. American paper manufacturing used about that much energy in 2018 [2]. [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/indus…

If I read the data right (1) the US currently produces roughly 4,000 TWh of electricity every year. 500 TWh is a significant portion of that! The US will need a lot of additional capacity for things like electric cars and heat pumps. Most of the effort should be going towards that, not huge data centers attending to unproven demand (how many people will pay the real price for ChatGPT once the VC subsidy ends remains…

The sources for some of the future data centers will be local and not necessarily influence the US grid. Consider also that cement production uses about 3000 TWh per year worldwide, and aluminium smelting uses about 1000 TWh per year.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#83

Post by LunaSea »

pureagave wrote: post #29
joelthelion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's really the only way forward. seems like a win/win. There is another way forward, which is not building these data centers, forcing AI companies to use power more efficiently, and use the excess energy production capacity towards the energy transition in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. It's not going to happen, at least not right now, but it's clearly what we ought to do. ChatGPT can wa…

I think you may be missing the whole national security part of the AI race. This isn't just about asking a computer what recipe you can cook tonight with the items in your fridge. In many ways it is similar to the race to build a nuclear bomb. We may individually not like that, but we might individually be best served to live in the nation that got there first.

We can see in Ukraine that AI plays a very very small role in the war. Production of small drones and their control across jammed areas is the current problem space.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#84

Post by LunaSea »

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…

> Unfortunately our skies and land are littered with windmills made out of unrecyclable polymers that are terrible for raptors.

Like our lands and oceans are not littered with drilling platforms and fracking stations already

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#85

Post by Yizahi »

Anthropic just borrowed 133 billion dollars from different investors in September, and 20 billion in total over 2025. Just where would they get such amount of actual money? Ask Softbank for a donation? Those guys do like to pour money into a fire pit.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#86

Post by Yizahi »

LunaSea wrote: post #83
pureagave wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be missing the whole national security part of the AI race. This isn't just about asking a computer what recipe you can cook tonight with the items in your fridge. In many ways it is similar to the race to build a nuclear bomb. We may individually not like that, but we might individually be best served to live in the nation that got there first.

We can see in Ukraine that AI plays a very very small role in the war. Production of small drones and their control across jammed areas is the current problem space.

And I bet that a majority of those LLM usage in Ukraine is via local focused models, good for picking shapes on a grainy images and not much else, but fast and cheap. There is literally zero use for the gigantic general LLMs which can produce human-like output and routinely generate fake numbers, in the army setting.

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#88

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #30
joelthelion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's really the only way forward. seems like a win/win. There is another way forward, which is not building these data centers, forcing AI companies to use power more efficiently, and use the excess energy production capacity towards the energy transition in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. It's not going to happen, at least not right now, but it's clearly what we ought to do. ChatGPT can wa…

Why should they be treated differently than any other customer?

[deleted]

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#89

Post by klysm »

cowpig wrote: post #11

> Today, we are announcing a $50 billion investment in American computing infrastructure > The project will create approximately 800 permanent jobs Approximately $62.5 million per permanent job created!

An interesting thought is how much of this money ultimately lands in Taiwan and China

Re: Anthropic invests $50B in US AI infrastructure

#90

Post by georgemcbay »

nradov wrote: post #80
georgemcbay wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are treated like every other customer, all of our energy bills go up the more data centers they build This is not a theoretical concern, it is happening already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN6BEUA4jNU

OK then I guess we should disconnect every large industrial electricity customer from the grid. That way we'll all have lower energy bills, right?

> 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 the costs of the increased infrastructure that is only needed because they exist (take away data center build-outs and electricity usage is largely flat or falling pretty much everywhere in the US).

I hope the data center developers are paying you to lobby for their ongoing corporate welfare? Because that's what you're basically doing here.

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