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AI is the Hummer of compute solutions. [1]

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Date: 2024-06-05  

Amongst all the hype surrounding AI technology, there is one aspect that I rarely see addressed. Well known are the intellectual property risks, the potential for job loss, and, of course, the hilarious failures when companies like Google try to deploy the technology too quickly.

However, the biggest problem with AI currently is that it is the least energy efficient way to solve any problem.

In a recent keynote address, the CEO of nVidia announced their next generation chips, called Blackwell, designed to support AI, particularly AI based data centers. He set expectations that millions of these chips will be deployed in datacenters worldwide. These clusters, configured with 8 GPUs, will use over 14kW of power, or 1.75kW per GPU. Compare that to the current generation, which use around 1kW. That’s nearly double.

In their presentation, nVidia tried to spin this by touting the new chips faster speed means less time to compute the same data, saving energy overall. This is not an honest comparison. Data centers are in the business of selling their compute time, they will be aiming to max out. A million chips deployed using this technology would require more than an entire nuclear plant to itself in order to power it.

One million Blackwell GPUs would suck down an astonishing 1.875 gigawatts of power. For context, a typical nuclear power plant only produces 1 gigawatt of power. - John Loeffler, TechRadar

This is on top of the already power hungry current generation AI datacenter chips, the H100s, which consume more power than some countries. The available infrastructure of cleaner, renewable sources is not in place to keep pace. The difference is likely to be made up in fossil fuels. This is a potential catastrophe.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/5/2244903/-AI-is-the-Hummer-of-compute-solutions?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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