The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.
  • Mohamed@lemmy.caEnglish
    34 minutes

    Oh, 16 degrees Fahrenheit. Still, thats quite a bit.

  • rogsson@piefed.socialEnglish
    13 minutes

    We could soon heat entire countries with the heat from these doomsday factories

  • LumpyPancakes@piefed.socialEnglish
    49 minutes

    Would be nice if they built them in cold climates and piped the heat to houses and buildings like the steam era of old.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20 minutes

    When will some bot/AI bro come to say “um, ackchually, thing that is important for human life is worse, Malthusianism is the solution”?

      • ramenshaman@lemmy.worldEnglish
        34 minutes

        Make a drone that can land on the roof, drop some thermite to melt a hole down into the data center, then have it lower a small EMP device into the hole and fry their whole system.

  • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4 hours

    Years ago, I was driving through NY city-ish. We pulled over in a rest area and I saw a sign about turning your engine off. I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, as did many other people apparently as their cars were idling. Then I got out of my car. I was wrong. The heat was insane. I couldn’t wrap my little head around it. I started doing the engineer math thing because it didn’t make sense.

    Doesn’t surprise me at all these massive data centers are creating little heat domes. The cars were bad enough, and they are a fraction of the energy.

    • Kairos@lemmy.todayEnglish
      4 hours

      100% of electricity burned turns to heat save light that leaves earth. Gigawatt data center? That’s ~650,000 1500w space heaters.

      • expatriado@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4 hours

        i work for a large power company, we have a data center customer that have as many equally sized cooling towers as one of our nuclear power plants.

        • tehn00bi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3 hours

          Pretty soon you’ll just have nuclear plants just to power data centers.

          • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            35 minutes

            Nuclear plants to power data centers to make ai slop to make more need for data centers to feed us ai ad slop…when does it fucking end?

            I hope some vigilantes start taking action against these damn wastes of space.

            • BanMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
              15 minutes

              The disease is late stage capitalism, the symptom is a mad dash to trade our natural resources for energy and pollution. The mad dash will continue as long as we’re bleeding humanity to keep the shareholders high and dry.

          • ClockworkOtter@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2 hours

            Didn’t Microsoft try to pay for a nuclear plant to be recommissioned just to power a data centre or something?

            • teyrnon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              56 minutes

              There have been several data centers that have bought nuclear plants, including Three Mile Island, they’re going to fire that bitch back up, also the Regulators have been disempowered. Propublica on the last part if I recall.

      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4 hours

        Isn’t the largest data center currently something like 100MW? So “only” 0.1GW…65.000 space heaters is still insane though.

        • expatriado@lemmy.worldEnglish
          57 minutes

          we were asked 400MW for a new data center, we told them 100MW is the max we could provide for now, and increase later, we have a new natural gas plant soon to enter operation to replace two retiring coal plants, but looks like we’re extending decommission targets to keep demand

        • Kairos@lemmy.todayEnglish
          4 hours

          Oh. I originally put megawatt and thought that was too small so I just incremented the metric exponent.

    • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4 hours

      There’s 33kWh worth of energy in a gallon of gasoline, and they use 0.3gal/hour when idling, so cars are pumping out 11kWh of heat just sitting there…that’s a surprisingly large amount of heat.

      • Eheran@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4 hours

        33 kWh/gallon * 0.3 gallon/h = 10 kWh/h = 10 kW

        But units aside, that is really nothing. The car itself already has about 3 m² area or about 3 kW of sunlight. The issue is the CO2 (globally) and pollution from the car (locally, causing smog etc.).

  • NoTagBacks@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4 hours

    I’m not sure what you guys are worried about. All that extra heat will just dissipate into the atmosphere and eventually radiate into space. It’s not like there’s anything in the atmosphere that would interfere with this cycle… right?

    • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3 hours

      And we would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling fossil fuels, and cows too!

  • Bitflip@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4 hours

    Its not enough. Donate fire to a nearby data center today to improve its temperature!

  • Antaeus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3 hours

    Sigh… wasting power, wasting nand chips, hard drives and for what? Aiding climate change.

    But at least we can have a hallucinating chatbot.

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      34 minutes

      No bro llms are good bro they’re so efficient bro trust me.

      I need 10 trilllion more bro and it’ll be so good i promise.

  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3 hours

    What’s the long/short term on burning them to the ground

  • tidderuuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4 hours

    This is perfectly timed because WA states legislature ended their session this year and decided not to take up the topic of regulating data centers. Even better knowing that the PNW just had the warmest winter in history, record low snowpack and nearly every month a new mega data center is opening.

  • rabber@lemmy.caEnglish
    3 hours

    As a lifelong datacenter tech it really sucks seeing what monster this has all become. And I don’t know what else I would do to pay the bills.

    • confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      42 minutes

      I used to work in automation within the auto industry. Once I became aware of the damage I was doing by being an enabler, that shit began to eat away at my mental health. I knew I had to make an exit plan when all of my day dreams while working there involved Molotov cocktails.

      I don’t envy anyone who has to deal with that kind of mental load. Knowing the harm you’re causing while wanting the opposite but still needing to survive the next day, week or month.

  • Switorik@lemmy.zipEnglish
    4 hours

    Big brain moment. If we stop monitoring it, then problem doesn’t exist.