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AI capex is so big that it's affecting economic statistics

(paulkedrosky.com)
337 points throw0101c | 2 comments | 18 Jul 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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x86x87 ◴[18 Jul 25 20:33 UTC] No.44609513[source]▶
I hear AI data centers are consuming more power than the entire country of Argentina /s

But I don't hear anyone worried about the massive power consumption without a clear indication if this is a net positive for our society.

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1. zegax ◴[18 Jul 25 20:43 UTC] No.44609614[source]▶
Roughly 5% of energy in the US is dedicated towards AI datacenters. The current usage will double to 70–90 TWh/year by 2026-2027. For software heavy tech businesses it makes sense to host your own AI data center so that you could train it on your codebase and have developers build faster. Not sure if this benefits humanity that much..
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2. mattmanser ◴[18 Jul 25 21:02 UTC] No.44609797[source]▶
Will it? Google originally started trying to sell search servers you'd install on site. And on prem (even on your cloud) is not a model any of the big boys will want to follow.

We're yet to see if it's going to be a winner takes all market or whether there will end up a Linux equivalent pop up that destroys all the investment from the big players because programmers are too tight to pay for software.