Data centers use no more than 1.5% of electricity globally[1], and a long LLM query uses only a little more than 5 minutes of general laptop use ~3x the energy of running an LED light for 5 minutes.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-a...
So you’re saying we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs?
1.5% is a //huge// amount. If it was a “drop” in your bucket, it would only hold 67 more of those drops.
Only if you hold the view that AI will not lead to use using energy more efficiently.
No, I'm not saying that and I don't think 1.5% is particularly large. Moreover many of these projects are built out with on site 0 carbon generation so they're in some ways a net benefit.
The largest projects, like Box Elder County Utah and Pecos County Texas, are using fossil fuels.
In fact, I'm unaware of any new AI data center also being built with 0 carbon generation. Do you have a source?
Can I have 1.5% of your net worth?
Ohhh, carbon neutral energy generation, if only we could use that to replace the non-neutral energy sources, instead of using it to power virtual X-Ray goggles so MAGA incels can goon at "naked Taylor Swift". Or to answer "please do my work for me" of lazy fucks planet-wide. You know, to stay relevant to the comment thread of "Oceans hit highest temperature on record"...
Like xAI's running gas generators non-stop?
This is wildly out of touch with reality. Have you never seen a construction site? A 0 carbon generation site doesn't exist.
You know what’s meant by that, it refers to ongoing generation emissions.
Link some zero carbon ones if there are ‘many’.
That figure likely doesn't include crypto mining, either. That's another 0.5% or so.
0.5% is about the entire energy consumption of two Swedens or half a Thailand.
> we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs?
No, we couldn't, because degrowth solutions aren't really an option.
I call degrowth "abstinence based" environmental policy in allegory to abstinence based sex education. The latter is the "we don't need condoms or birth control, just teach people not to have sex" thing, which doesn't work either.
You really think you're going to convince people to become poorer? Not possible in a democracy. It'd require some kind of ecofascist totalitarian thing where you take peoples' energy and resource use away and fire tear gas and rubber bullets at them when they protest.
Or we could build non-carbon-based energy sources. Cause we have those, and they work. You can also have safe sex if you put a rubber thing on your wing-wong.
And right now the fuel for fascism seems to be coming from the newly minted billionaires who own or profit off of the data centers.
1.5% of electricity. That's a significant difference. Only about 1/7th of all our energy usage is electricity
1.5% of global energy use would be a shocking amount. Aviation is at about 3%. 1.5% of global electricity is about 0.2% of global energy use, a much more manageable figure
Wow, even with that being electricity rather than energy, that's orders of magnitude more than I would have guessed. That's a tremendous amount of electricity.
> ~3x the energy of running an LED light for 5 minutes.
Why would this not be the energy of running an LED light for 15 minutes?
It's an unspoken rule in the data center debate that every metric is completely batshit.
Doesn't matter what side you're on, it's always "enough water to irrigate 27 soccer fields" or "as much energy as 1/5th of the average hamburger"
It comes from Our World in Data, highly reputable, and I included the source link.
I'm sure that figure is accurate. And the other person in this thread who commented "the entire energy consumption of two Swedens or half a Thailand" is probably also accurate.
It's not about accuracy, it's about the units people choose when having these discussions
1.5% of electricity, not energy
that would be 0.3% of global energy use
Ah yes, "just" 485 TWh, equal to all electricity consumption of Germany. Drop in the bucket
When all is said and done, data centers are going to be complimentary to green energy. They can spin up and down to buffer non-linear power nodes.
They also represent investment in economic growth that doesn't come from resource extraction or travel or manufacturing.
While yes they can spin up and down, there is the deeper question of what it is all for.
This is why so many AI proponents always talk about future gains rather than what is happening today. It a lot of what it claimed to be coming doesn't happen then it will all look very silly.
Time will tell and depending on were you sit, either we will be there shortly or it will never happen.
Building data centers relies on immense manufacturing. The GPUs, systems, cooling, batteries, etc don't come from no where. They have strict replacement schedules too.