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RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung (www.pcworld.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 24 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Is there even enough power on the grid for all these data centers? Wtf?

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  • [–] 30 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Nope. A couple of them have been built and they're just sitting there unpowered

    Imagine you had infinite money and no consequences

    I mean you could like— build entire city size data centers right?

    But this infinite money goes away if you're not building them

    So your choices are to build something that you don't need or to have no money

    You see, humans were not very evolved or adapted to their planet, given their own social structures

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago*

    A couple of them have been built and they’re just sitting there unpowered

    Most of them in California because that State simply cannot get its shitty power grid sorted out. The damn thing barely works at the best of times due to a combination of corruption, greed, and Government interference.

    As an example the utility company promised Digital Realty and Stack Infrastructure that they'd have the power ready for them by the time their DCs were built but...SURPRISE...they lied. The only fault for DR and SI here is trusting a California Utility to deliver on their promise.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago

    Power availability is actually a primary consideration when choosing a location for a Data Center. Sometimes they'll site a DC even if there isn't enough power and then build out the power generation that they need.

    An example are the two DCs that Microsoft is building in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the absolutely massive 1.2 Million panel solar farm being built to power them. https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/05/11/massive-1-2-billion-1-2-million-panel-solar-farm-planned-for-south-cheyenne/

    This is at least the second time that Microsoft has done this in Cheyenne. In 2016 they contracted for 237 MW of Wind Energy, which led to the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farms being built / expanded. https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2016/11/14/latest-energy-deal-microsofts-cheyenne-datacenter-will-now-powered-entirely-wind-energy-keeping-us-course-build-greener-responsible-cloud/

    No matter what you think of AI the folks that engineer these DCs aren't stupid. They are well aware of their extreme power requirements.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago*

    We have such copious amounts of excess power but its all in off peak times. We need to build batteries or other storage methods so we can capture it in off peak hours for use during peak hours. It also helps stabilize and strengthen the grid.

    We should force these data centers to help foot the bill for that instead of doing the stupid shit they're doing like portable generators, bring coal plants back online and what not.

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