1w ago

Data Centers Turn to Aviation Engines for Power Solutions

spectrum.ieee.org

Repurposed aircraft engines are powering AI data centers amid delays for grid hookups. They're an efficient and innovative solution to bridging the power gap.

16 comments

There just aren’t enough gas turbines to go around and the problem is probably going to get worse
So the market doesn't provide enough energy, energy generators and the actual tooling (GPUs) to satisfy demands of one.single.industry.
Take from that what you want.
Now the AI is basically powered by private jets. The billionaires are buying carbon offsets, so it’s all good.
What are chances they fly away and leave us alone ?
As much as I hate calling LLMs “AI” and the recent surge in its use and production, why hasn’t any of these brilliant machines told their owners about nuclear power? We figured out how to rub spicy rocks together and generate power without the need to light anything on fire a long time ago.
- They fired up an old decommissioned nuke plant in Eastern Pennsylvania to power a Microsoft data center
- That still requires a turbine to turn the steam into electricity. If turbines are the shortage then nuclear doesn't solve the shortage.
- Maybe they did. We’ll find out in a couple decades
Spectrum makes this seems a very positive way of "bringing power gaps", but the social consequences of living nearby multiple engines running 24/7 are terrible. This video describes a "town that elon musk is poisoning "
https://youtu.be/3VJT2JeDCyw
No, we cannot have silent, emissions and maintenance free solar panels on rooftops. We need to run jet engines inside data centers instead.
Yes, this makes so much sense.
- Some of the biggest data centers are pushing 100 megawatts. When I worked on the solar farms out west, an entire industrial site would be around 200-400 megawatts.
  For context, those sites would be powering entire towns. The Blythe mesa solar project is over 2,000 acres of solar panels. It's bigger than the town. Quite a bit of Las Vegas is ran on solar.
  It's not quite as simple as just sticking panels on the roof of the data center. It also needs to be reliable enough to store the energy so it's available at night when the sun is down. This is still one of solar's biggest hurdles.
- I'm sure they'll put them outside where the residents of local towns will be subjected to their cacophony
  
  They will call that "progress", and probably "clean energy", that's going to be good for aaalllll citizens of that town.
  That's why the citizens will have to pay extra taxes to finance the new "town infrastructure".
  Now bring the data center money.
  
  They'll be able to hear the ai bubble
Connection to grid is heavily regulated, can take ten years or more and faces heavy opposition, nobody wants this
Want data center rn
Install natural gas jet engine turbines
Profit
Remind me why this would be better than a diesel generator.
- Lower emissions, and natural gas is cheaper than diesel. Also, the lead time is much shorter, as there aren't many manufacturers of large diesel generators that could keep up with AI datacentre demand, whereas there are lots of airliner turbofans being retired that could be refurbished to become these generators.

16 comments