How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren’t Saying
How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren’t Saying
A growing body of research attempts to put a number on energy use and AI—even as the companies behind the most popular models keep their carbon emissions a secret.
A growing body of research attempts to put a number on energy use and AI—even as the companies behind the most popular models keep their carbon emissions a secret.
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This and water usage. They're things you hear about a lot but have no convincing proof of. Therefore it's hard to tell exactly how much of it is true or just propaganda. I believe it's as bad as they say, but have no means to argue back against someone claiming otherwise
Physics puts some useful limits on things that can be applied here. All of the water used for cooling is considered wastewater, and it is generally treated chemically in a way that is difficult to process back to clean water. Water has a specific thermal mass, and we can see what hardware is being used in these data centers. From personal experience a flow rate of 1.5L/min is standard. Each rack is limited in power not by how much the supply can put out, but by what they can cool.
Even doing napkin math with the Blackwell systems that have been out for a couple of years it is as bad as they say and likely worse with the coolants and passivators going into the water.
I have advised a few water cooled systems, and did some work on Cheyenne in college. Not once was water reclamation even mentioned, it was all pumped right to sewage.
Here. For anyone who values facts over sensionalism.
But I thought we already knew with 100% certainty that asking anything of chatGPT burns half the Amazon and clubs a few baby seals. Are you telling me we didn't actually know and that was alarmist bullshit meant to distract you from real issues?