The newest problem with AI? Not enough power for data centers.

[thewayne]

The global power supply is feeling the pinch of AI as data centers are being built and more planned for companies getting in to the generative AI field. I have mentioned before that generative AI consumes more power than generating cryptocurrency, which is no slouch when it comes to consuming current: companies have repurposed retired coal plants to power crypto!

So now what, we're going to unretire closed nuke plants to power AI data centers?

Even now, AI mining operations are being closed to repurpose them for training the Large Language Models (the LLMs that are frequently referred to) for AI.

This is a big mess, and it's only going to get worse. The permitting and construction lead time for any energy source, be it natural gas, wind farms, whatever, is quite extensive. And there's probably a heck of a waiting list for the companies that build them. And the companies that want new data centers want the power for them NOW!NOW!NOW! Bit of a problem.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/04/power-hungry-ai-is-putting-the-hurt-on-global-electricity-supply/

Comments

[kathmandu]

This is the thing that bothers me about all this LLM activity. They're not harmless. They're soaking up enormous amounts of electrical power, and heating or pollution lots of water, at a time when we desperately need to reduce power consumption and waste heat.

[thewayne]

Completely agree.  Same problem with cryptocurrency, for which about the only use is criminal.

[armiphlage]

The good news is that power consumption is driving wafer-scale processors, which theoretically will result in far faster and greatly more energy-efficient computing - not just for LLMs and general AI, but for traditional server farms, and eventually home computing.

Traditionally, you take a big disc of silicon, etch hundreds or thousands of individual chips on it, cut them up into individual dies, and wirebond them into their own packages. You then solder them separately onto circuit boards.

However, all the wirebond and solder interconnects have resistance, which wastes electricity, and creates heat.

So designers are now planning on taking the big disc of silicon, etching hundreds or thousands of individual chips on it, and leaving them in the big disc. Then they tell an electronics factory to just bond the disc to a cooled heatsink, and wirebond a few connectors around the edges. Less waste heat, faster communication between processors, and a server rack is replaced by something the size of a personal pan pizza.

Except it's a huge gigantic steaming pain to manufacture them in real life, and manufacturing engineers are tempted to use the wafers like ninja throwing stars whenever a designer says how easy it is to bond them to a heatsink.

(bias note: I work in an electronics factory).

[thewayne]

It's definitely a good idea, eventually someone will have a DOH! moment and figure something out that will make it work, a classic 'rotate it 90 degrees!' sort of thing.  The question is, how long will it take for that moment to happen, and how long will it take to create the new machines to produce it.

[kathmandu]

That does sound like a neat potential advance of technology.

[armiphlage]

Yes, I really want to use these new ninja throwing stars.

[disneydream06]

Ain't technology grand?
UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hugs, Jon

[dewline]

Just the frustration at the people trying to drag us backwards five steps instead of the usual one...

[motodraconis]

Can't help but think that future generations, as they struggle to live on an Earth that has been burned to the ground, will look back on this time and boggle that instead of trying to fix the spiralling environmental catastrophe, we decided to invent pointless and stupid shit like cryptocurrency and bullshit AI to burn down the Earth faster.

The next steps of course, as resources such as food production get fucked up, will be full scale war.

[thewayne]

I just hope I'm dead and gone before that stage because clearly greed is burning the planet and there's pretty much fuck all that normal people can do about it.

[silveradept]

If they want to get all that power for their computing devices, then they should do the research into building enough renewable energy to power such things and only be allowed to bring them on-line when they can self-supply the power for it. After all, self-sufficiency is one of those virtues they tout having, right? Maybe, maybe, once we have a grid that's a sun or two's worth of energy generation, they can play with their LLMs to their heart's content.

[thewayne]

Phoenix is sort of doing that with housing construction having to demonstrate they have a water supply lined up.  Good idea!

[kaishin108]

This could become a real mess!
Are taxpayers going to be paying for all of this AI?
Hmmm.