CEO: ‘AI’ Power Drain Could Cause Data Centers To Run Out Of Power Within Two Years
from the I'm-sorry-I-can't-do-that,-Dave dept
By now it’s been made fairly clear that the bedazzling wonderment that is “AI” doesn’t come cheap. Story after story have highlighted how the technology consumes massive amounts of electricity and water, and we’re not really adapting to keep pace. This is also occurring alongside a destabilizing climate crisis that’s already putting a capacity and financial strain on aging electrical infrastructure.
A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates that the 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) consumed by data centers in 2022 represented 2% of all global electricity usage, mostly driven by data centers and data center cooling. AI and crypto mining is expected to double that consumption by 2026.
Marc Ganzi, CEO of data center company DigitalBridge, isn’t really being subtle about his warnings. He claims that data centers are going to start running out of power within the next 18-24 months:
“We started talking about this over two years ago at the Berlin Infrastructure Conference when I told the investor world, we’re running out of power in five years. Well, I was wrong about that. We’re kind of running out of power in the next 18 to 24 months.”
Of course when these guys say “we” are going to run out of power, they really mean you (the plebs) will be running out of power. They’ll find solutions to address their need for unlimited power, and the strain will likely be shifted to areas, companies, and residents with far less robust lobbying budgets.
Data centers can move operations closer to natural gas, hydropower sources, or nuclear plants. Some are even using decommissioned Navy ships to exploit liquid cooling. But a report by the financial analysts at TD Cowen says there’s now a 3+ year lead time on bringing new power connections to data centers. It’s a 7 year wait in Silicon Valley; 8 years in markets like Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin.
Network engineers have seen this problem coming for years. Yet crypto and AI power consumption, combined with the strain of climate dysregulation, still isn’t really a problem the sector is prepared for. And when the blame comes, the VC hype bros who got out over their skis, or utilities that failed to modernize for modern demand and climate stability issues won’t blame themselves, but regulation:
“[Cisco VP Denise] Lee said that, now, two major trends are getting ready to crash into each other: Cutting-edge AI is supercharging demand for power-hungry data center processing, while slow-moving power utilities are struggling to keep up with demand amid outdated technologies and voluminous regulations.”
While I’m sure utilities and data centers certainly face some annoying regulations, the real problem rests on the back of technology hype cycles that don’t really care about the real-world impact of their hyper-scaled profit seeking. As always, the real-world impact of the relentless pursuit of unlimited wealth and impossible scale is somebody else’s problem to figure out later, likely at significant taxpayer cost.
This story is playing out to a backdrop of a total breakdown of federal regulatory guidance. Bickering state partisans are struggling to coordinate vastly different and often incompatible visions of our energy future. While at the same time a corrupt Supreme Court prepares several pro-corporate rulings designed to dismantle what’s left of coherent federal regulatory independence.
I would suspect the crypto and AI-hyping VCs (and the data centers that profit off of the relentless demand for unlimited computational power and energy) will be fine. Not so sure about everybody else, though.
Filed Under: ai, climate change, electricity, environmental impact, language learning models, llm, sustainability
Comments on “CEO: ‘AI’ Power Drain Could Cause Data Centers To Run Out Of Power Within Two Years”
AI is going to kill us all!!!!
Ooops never mind, we ran out of power.
But hang on we’ll get it back up do our robot overlords can resume eliminating us.
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For the young generation, and even the older ones (like the one that couldn’t survive a whole afternoon without TV in the 90s), living without internet, phones, games, TV… is way worse than death.
Maybe AI is not gonna kill us after all but make us live hell during a long age in the dark.
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You’ve never watched cartoons, have you? All you need to do, to escape the angry AI, is run directly away from it until it reaches the end of its extension cord and unplugs itself!
Ok, so whose fault is that? None of us here created the AI and speaking for myself I don’t use AI.
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Re: Karl Bode cant code
The reason why Berlin is running out of electricity, is because they decided to shut down their nuclear power plants, their coal power plants, and the Nord stream pipeline was blown up.
Of course Karl Bode doesn’t actually know anything about what goes on in Germany or how AI works, but I am going to be participating in a AI research paper discussion with a bunch of Germans in about an hour.
Karl of course doesn’t mention the other industrial heavy users of electricity in germany, e.g. steel and aluminum production, because they don’t generate clickbait like this does.
Re: Re: Revenge Porn Guy projects his stupidity and inability to learn
Of course you don’t know anything at all and refuses to learn anything new, you substitute actual facts from people in the industry with pure projections (as usual). Or perhaps the IEA report and what Marc Ganzi said used words that were too difficult for you to understand?
Good for you, but what are you going to do when you wake up?
As I said, did the IEA report and Marc Ganzi use words you couldn’t understand?
Cretin
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ITS ALL AI’S FAULT
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If late-stage capitalism hadn’t proved that they LOVE to use advances in technology to create large swathes of working poor and underemployed people, and then villify anyone who points out that unfortunate fact…
Well, let’s just say there’s a reason why the British hate Margret Thatcher and I fear the next generation of Marxists…
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It’s sad how little you know. The demand for energy by AI has a growth-rate of at minimum of 26% annually. That’s at minimum a doubling of the demand every third year.
Fucking learn something cretin.
Just part of the greater corporate plan to grind everything on the planet down to toxic, radioacive dust in the name of the Holy Profit. Nothing to see here…
We should have been building nuclear plants decades ago.
Reaganomics has resulted in $4T in deferred maintenance to date.
We’re still deferring maintenance, and we’re still not building nuclear plants.
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Various pools and storage facilities for low level nuclear waste disagree with you.
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I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. In any event, turning the entire planet into a sacrifice zone is not a compelling alternative.
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Nah, Reaganomics has led to not investing in other forms of renewables, which is the biggest problem today.
Nuclear can be great, but the opposition comes from Three Mile Island/Chernobyl/Fukushima, not Reagan directly (although the cold war didn’t help). If we’d have had decades of continued investments into other power in the meantime, that wouldn’t have mattered, but instead we got oil…
It’s not too late to change things, but the lead times and issues with nuclear mean it’s not the best option.
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It’s not the opposition, i believe they are talking about the “Hey it’s ok if the lid of your pressure vessel is rusted out and we told you that 5 years ago and you’ve still done nothing. Hell, here’s several billion from the state, enjoy.”
Re: Re:
Reaganomics and the lack of Nuclear development are separate things. That’s why I mentioned them on separate lines, with a space in between.
What was crypto again good for? Shut crypto down and half the problem is solved.
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I agree. Every crypto operation should be forcibly shut down, every crypto operator should be imprisoned for life in a forced-labor camp, and every crypto “asset” destroyed. Crypto is pure raw evil and everyone involved in it should be harshly punished.
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Great. We can start shooting each other over Bitcoin. Here I thought the ratcheting GOP genocide would be the impetus for the next civil war, but this fucking genius here wants to drag people into the street for a $10 FOMO play.
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In case you haven’t been paying attention – and obviously you haven’t – we have an epidemic of ransomware incidents on our hands, affecting commerce, health care, education, and everything else.
And you know what’s driving that? Crypto. Because crypto is how the criminals behind these attacks get paid, and getting paid is their motive.
We ALSO have an epidemic of money laundering and sanctions evasion – again, facilitated by crypto. Yes, yes, the problem existed prior to crypto but its emergence has made the issue orders of magnitude worse.
We ALSO have an epidemic of mass extortion threats – once again, enabled by crypto.
None of this is surprising: this is why crypto exists: it was designed for, built for, run for criminals, and whaddaya know: criminals have embraced it. It’s (rather quickly) become the top issue for those of us in CSO/CTO/CIO positions, which is remarkable given how many other problems we have to face.
The schlub dropping $10 on Bitcoin might not realize this, but they’re part of this problem. They, and millions like them, are propping up this ecosystem. They’re funding some of the very worst people – like human trafficker, pedophile, and rapist Andrew Tate – who are of course doing whatthey do best: commit crimes.
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The problem is none of that is unique to crypto. Ransomware attacks aren’t enabled by crypto, they’re just the method by which the ransom holders believe they can best be paid.
Also, Tate’s committed many crimes without crypto being a factor, he confessed to rapes well before he set up webcam operations.
Basically, you’ll still be dealing with organised crime without crypto, they’ll just choose a different weak point in your system.
Re: Re: Re:3
I’m well aware that ransomware was an issue before crypto came along – but crypto has been the driving force behind its enormous increase. It’s THE reason why we have an epidemic instead of a containable problem, and it’s THE reason why it continues to get worse.
Keep something in mind: some ransomware incidents are reported in the popular press. That’s a subset of those reported in the technical press. That’s a subset of the ones known within the infosec community. That’s a subset of the ones known to some people in the infosec community. That’s a subset of those known within companies/organizations/etc. That’s a subset of the incidents that have happened. The problem is FAR larger even the most pessimistic guesstimates that I’ve seen — because the overwhelming majority of victims try very hard to prevent the news from being known even within their own organizations, and many of them succeed.
Every use case for crypto is criminal activity: money laundering, drug trafficking, fraud, human trafficking, sanctions evasion, terrorism support, etc. (There are NO legitimate uses for crypto. None.) Again, all these problems existed prior to crypto but it’s made them far worse…which is why I want to see all crypto operations shut down and all crypto operators imprisoned. These are sociopaths who don’t care how many people they hurt or how much damage they do (to society, to the planet, etc.) as long as they can personally profit.
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In case you haven’t been paying attention – come get me.
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What? Also, what?
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What was crypto again good for?
Screening for gullible rubes to scam and flagging them as good candidates for other scams?
AI will also reduce resource usage, not just increase it
-It’s not just all new resources and applications, AI will replace and significantly alter existing systems. Some product categories and systems will completely disappear.
-Smartphones will (should) be where much of the AI processing occurrs, local on the device, secure, private, and not using the cloud.
-New dedicated AI chips and related software to run and share models will reduce costs, won’t just be millions of Nvidia cards.
-Existing data centers will be repurposed/refactored for AI, so thats not adding power requirements.
-Maybe we won’t all be saving/creating as much content, so that cloud storage goes down. We’ll consume more dynamically generated content. (sad)
Wasn’t Mike supposed to be working on some kind of big NFT paper while sponsored with some crypto group a few years ago? How’s that going?
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Source or fuck off.
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Here you go.
It was fully funded with cryptoshit. So where is it?
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Your source? Still waiting.
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Not playing your game. Mike promised a paper on NFTs, it got funded, it’s nowhere to be found for years. Where is it? Did they just take the money and run?
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Yep he ran where no one could find him. Haven’t heard a thing out of him in years. Probably livin’ high on the hog with his millions.
Re: Re: Re:3
No games here. I legitimately do not trust you for shit.
Re: Re: Re:4
The link I posted goes to a Techdirt article. The Techdirt article is about crowdfunding for a paper about NFTs. The paper was successfully funded with cryptoshit. It’s been years and Mike still has not delivered what was promised. I’m curious why that is.
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Doesn’t exist.
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Dude, that’s not even how crowdfunding begins to work. I add to others’ requests for evidence that the paper on NFTs was funded by cryptocurrency rather a whole bunch of people putting in a couple bucks each.
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The Techdirt article I linked to has a link to their crowdfunding at the top. The page shows that people paid for it in Ethereum.
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You didn’t link shit.
Re: Re: Re:4
The text that says “Here you go.” is a link to a Techdirt article. Click on it. Then click on the crowdfunding link at the top of said article.
Re: Re: Re:3
Actually, Ethereum is the platform that powers the cryptocurrency Ether, it’s not a cryptocurrency in and of itself. I repeat, where’s the evidence that the paper was funded by actual cryptocurrency? I’ll wait.
Re: Re: Re:4
The page for the crowdfunding says, explicitly:
Backers can send ETH to crowdfund to support the research, writing, and design of the paper.
IT’s there, clear as day, on the page for the crowdfunding.
They are eventually going to do with power the same thing that’s coming with the internet, regardless of the FCC.
People will soon be able to prioritize their electricity over others, for a fee.
I think you’re being overly dramatic here. This ain’t how power works in the US. If they are a coop, and a lot of utilities are, the board is elected by the ratepayers and serve them first. Commercial entities don’t even have a seat. And if they are municipal, they are run by the city, usually through a commission, who are either elected or appointed by those that are elected. None of these organizations have the desire to feed AI over voting customers, and if they go down that path they will be corrected next election.
Now if the utility is private……they still won’t do this. They have minimum service requirements, which is a trade off for their exclusive franchise to sell power. Failure to meet these performance minimums means they don’t get approved capital and O&M costs approved for recovery (rates) by the state Utility Commission, and then they don’t make their guaranteed 8-10% profit per year, the stock slides, and the C suites stop getting bonuses. Or worse, they lose the franchise entirely, or the locality annexes the entirety of their assets. Can’t have that.
Utilities have been dealing with crypto mines for years already. In most instances, residential rates are subsidized by commerical and industrial rate structures because the Utility Commission are generally responsive to the public. So adding stable business is a positive, so brining in large data centers has generally lead to lower prices for the residents. But utilities are used to these kind of gold rush scenarios. They want stable, long term customers, that pay for decades.
There are lobbying groups for residential and several for commercial or industrial, and they are absolutely at odds anything that increases costs. AI might have lots of money to spend on lobbying, but they don’t have more than literally every other business combined.
A few years ago, it was mine farms…..a bunch of utilities made specific rates for them ith crippling power prices. Before that, it was every failed mall developer that got into solar. Before that it was wind farms everywhere.
Power companies are slow, risk adverse, stodgy, lack creativity, and difficult to work with. But most of them are very worried about the inability to server their residential customers power.
Personally I think any private utility should be annexed and made a public utility or a coop as is. And they are very aware that that sentiment would grow if people were to stop getting power.
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Agreed!
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I somehow deleted an important sentence:
None of this applies in Texas. Those people are fucked.
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Oof.
TLDR
“alongside a destabilizing climate crisis that’s already putting a capacity and financial strain on aging electrical infrastructure.”
So, converting us over to LCD lighting and Saving 60% of the power the USA USE’s? didnt do much?
Then its TIME to FIX the problem…As the corps wont do it. they WONT, unless paid 10-100 times the going price of the facility. THEN charge Every person MORE because they have to cash OUR CHECKS.
They wish those of us NEAR the 45th parallel, to install Solar panels, and use them NOW, NOT for emergencies, But to use the power as its generated, to SAVE more power?????? FOR WHAT?
The USA has this strange thought about Centralized power. And its stupid.
they want facilities that have a Min, amount of power output, before they build anything. They DONT Like Small facilities that are good for a general AREA, in a state, Like Cover most of S. Idaho. They Want Facilities BIG enough to Power MORE then a few states at a time.. But the BIG problems with that? Look at the east side of the country, and remember that it takes 1-2 Power facilities to KNOCK OUT 2/3 of the east side. and unless they have Improve Anything in the last 30 years, IT WILL happen again.
They are trying to install Solar panels on roofs in Idaho, Without consideration of Things. #1, NO STORAGE, Use it or its sent next door/down the street. Storage would be great, and After enough is stored, THEN use the generation as much as you can. But they ARNT installing storage.
Future? 15-20 years from now? There isnt Much chance of replacing the panels.
Next is the idea of HOW Solar panels work. They Work better when they are not hot. They can Add to power by using reflectors. Just these 2 things can Almost double Power output. Fans or water cooling can almost double the power and the reflectors can add about 1/2 again. Is this in Any consideration? NOPE.
We have abit of Volcanism in this area. Think they would USE some of it? NOPE, not enough for more then Local Use, UNLESS you want to make a FEW parks go away.
NOW the BIG think in most of All power generation, is WHO PAID FOR IT to be Built?
The only thing the Power corps did was the Building to collect the bills.
All Gov. built Facilities Should be Owened by the people and we get Charged for 2x the suggested Time it will Last for the power generation being used. LIKE IT USED TO BE. BEFORE the STATES AND GOV. SOLD IT TO PRIVATE CORPS.
Charge us the replacement Cost x2. And whats NICE about that? IS its Cheaper for the corps ALSO. As a CORP wont be charging CORPS MORE MONEY. Or are they backdooring the system? Again, because the USE MORE they get cheaper prices?
Maybe all the AI processing will be done in Texas, they have the best electric power generation capabilities.
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Lol
Karl Bode’s posts read like an AI was asked to write a Karl Bode post based on all his earlier posts.
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Hey, at least he got you to add to engagement here with your post!
I get that there’s a lot of anti-AI panic, especially among people who write thinly-sourced clickbait posts for a living, but… how exactly is AI getting the blame, here? A 2% increase in power consumption — i.e., what you get if you double the 2% data centers use — can only cripple a power grid if the power grid has been incompetently managed for years.
And how about that. Thanks to a combination of NIMBY and environmental activists and industry-hostile regulators, the USA has been under-producing new power generation capacity for nearly fifty years. If you want to blame someone, try Greenpeace. Anti-nuclear fuckwits of various flavors managed to get more power generation capacity cancelled than the entire data center industry uses.
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Mostly it’s just a hostile, shitty, poorly run industry that has no next-quarter massive ROI the second you build a plant.
If the industry wasn’t so shitty (in the States, anyway) there never would have been a lot a people protesting.
Lol like Greenpeace controls the government and industry. Get fucking real.
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It actually is a large increase. 2% a year was what was happening during rural electrification, when growth was at its highest. That lead to a massive build out of the BPA transmission system and the USACE Columbia Dam system. Not that they are forecasting 2% per year, I’m trying to give a metric of what a few percent over a period of time can really add up to when you have to build to meet it.
And while we’re still adding more customers, about 2% per year ish, were meeting a lot of that load growth is meet through energy efficiency and load management strategies, DER, etc. resulting in a lot of areas that are seeing fractions of a percentage of actual growth. 2% over 5 years wouldn’t be just doubling only data centers, which is small, so its no big deal It’s doubling ALL load growth during that time. Installation of transmission and distribution systems are getting more expensive all the time, there are better safety (both public and crew), efficiency, stability, etc. And while it seems like you’d end up charging the data center for all of the build out, and the will get charged a chunk, the transmission upgrades it would require must be spread over everyone who benefits.
The way rates are built up, about half of the cost of your rate is the actual electrical energy and the losses, the other half is the the capital costs of the new plant, meaning the poles, wires, transforms etc. these are then depreciated over decades. So new capital assets are going into rates while fully depreciated assets are coming out of rates, and hopefully it all balances and keeps prices from rising. But if you, for example, increase your capital costs by 50%, the amount of cost going into rates for 5 years, you’re going to end up with some pretty wicked capital.
Plus, we’ve already built all the plants that were easy to build, and all of the plants that were moderate to build, and a lot of the plants that were hard to build, mostly leaving the incredibly hard to build. I’m talking geography, emissions, transmission, licensing, etc.
2% of actual load growth is doubt, but it’s much hard and more expensive than the number makes it look.
Re: Re:
2% of actual load growth is doable
The way this article is framed makes it seem like AI is responsible for, or at least driving, the increase in data center power usage. But according to the article which provided the headline quotation, 90-98% of the forecasted new data center demand is unrelated to AI.
Stretching hard enough to pull a muscle
When “computers power use” is the only thing they can come up with demonize AI you know they are reaching hard to come up with spin. It brings to mind oil companies trying to spin FUD about used wind turbines in landfills as a major environmental issue.
Combine that the with the fear-monger classic of bad extrapolations and nonreactive worlds. Data processing would never relocate in the face of brown-outs or similar, nope!