alt Hacker NewsI 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.
Replies
criddell • yesterday at 8:38 PM
> if this is a net positive for our society
Maybe that's something that can only be determined looking back. There are so many unknown unknowns.
woah • yesterday at 9:03 PM
Is Argentina a net positive for our society? There's the grilled beef, but every country has some kind of barbecue. There's a few soccer players I guess? Is Argentina worth the energy expenditure though?
➕ show 1 reply
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..