> The project will create approximately 800 permanent jobs
Approximately $62.5 million per permanent job created!
the excess can be sold to the grid.
it's really the only way forward. seems like a win/win.
Natural gas is the main reason our emissions have gone down as it replaces coal.
Also I don't think forcing is necessary. These datacenters want to, why impose more regulations.
Aim higher. Do better.
I really hope we go all in on nuclear though, with some natural gas and get rid of the windmills. Solar, hydro, geothermal can stay where it makes sense.
Unfortunately our skies and land are littered with windmills made out of unrecyclable polymers that are terrible for raptors.
Queue someone quoting how many cats kill birds like competing with the top predator is a good thing, or ignoring the fact that we put these in raptors' wind streams and cats don't hunt those large birds (which are usually endangered)
Our kids deserve nuclear.
Microsoft struck a deal with Three Mile Island to get a reactor up.
And Amazon is working with Talen Energy.
Might be others I missed.
There is another way forward, which is not building these data centers, forcing AI companies to use power more efficiently, and use the excess energy production capacity towards the energy transition in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
It's not going to happen, at least not right now, but it's clearly what we ought to do. ChatGPT can wait.
I'm all for more efficient usage, and it's in AI companies best interest to do so to minimize costs.
...but it's a growing industry, it will need more power.
Completing the energy transition is an enormous undertaking. Building huge data centers is a distraction, not a way forward.
This is not a theoretical concern, it is happening already.
How? Also, why? Why are datacentres the use to tamp down on versus other industrial and commercial uses?
This reminds me of California rationing residential water use so alfalfa farmers can flood their fields.
I do like the market insulation idea you propose in another comment (I would link to it, but apparently HN doesn't allow that).
Why? American datacentres--of all types--use about 250 TWh per year, with another 500 TWh additional capacity expected by 2030 [1]. American paper manufacturing used about that much energy in 2018 [2].
[1] https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from...
[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/industry.p... 2,491tn BTUs ~ 730 TWh
Out here in AZ, solar combined with battery would be perfect for datacenters.
Additionally, while these data centers do provide some jobs, where states are giving them grants, loans, infrastructure improvement, or otherwise they are ultimately extractive developments (like parking lots) where the wealth flows out from states like Ohio and flows in to states where the CEOs and HQ sit (California, New York, etc.).
I can tell you that people in Ohio across the political spectrum are not happy. We are losing good farm land, utilizing water, and our power costs are going up for negligible benefits at best. But hey now our state representatives can say "Meta is coming to central Ohio". Meanwhile costs are going up and we still have to ship produce in from other countries and states.
If our representatives and governors office thought about this all for about 2 seconds they would require any data center development to include 2x the number of corporate jobs over a certain income threshold or else not approve the development. If the developers balk, then fine it's not like we want them anyway.
The Trump Administration (and for that matter probably any admin) isn't doing jack shit.
[1] https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/state/ohio-regulators-tu...
Not really. We need to insulate consumers from the market that is solving and will solve that problem. That's a financial engineering and policy problem. America is good at the first. We're bad at the second. That implies state and local initiatives should take the lead.
My proposal: one market for essential residential consumption, defined as the median household consumption per region [1]. (If you don't use your allocation, you should earn a rebate.) Above that, market price. Same for preferred commercial uses, e.g. retail and local government.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit...
Will this pan out? We don't know, no one knows. But this isn't "a scam" there is a plausible future where a large percentage of white collar (or dare I say it, blue collar) work will have an assistant and that assistant requires a considerable subscription (200/mo? 1000/mo?).
Interesting to see all of the leading labs in the West make this bet.
I think that HoloLens has a reasonable demonstration of how to assist blue collar work about 10 years ago (AFAIK it flopped). I would bet a dollar that similar technology augmented with LLMs could be useful to blue collar work.
It's certainly possible. Will it actually happen? IDK.
For $50 billion?
I think there's a serious problem here.
KaiserPro•1h ago
Good luck paying that back, especially as AI is basically commodity now.
DANmode•1h ago
Also,
> customers that each represent over $100,000 in run-rate revenue—has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year.
isn’t unconvincing.
olivermuty•1h ago
EMM_386•1h ago
They buy hardware, replace it as the years go on, and continue doing business.
The investment isn't just in raw compute - they have to build buildings, pay staff, and other things. For the hardware and software - they just keep pace as all the other computing companies have to.
KaiserPro•58m ago
> Anthropic serves more than 300,000 business customers, and our number of large accounts—customers that each represent over $100,000 in run-rate revenue—has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year.
Let me deconstruct that:
> Anthropic serves more than 300,000 business customers
Hard fact. No qualification on spend or activity, are they on trails or fully paid with contracts and minimum spend
> and our number of large accounts—customers that each represent over $100,000 in run-rate revenue
run-rate revenue is an extrapolation. (https://www.fool.com/terms/r/run-rate/) That could be buisnesses that trail anthropic for a month, spend 24K and think "fuck thats expensive" and stops spending. average that over 2 months, then times by 12, boom 100k account.
> has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year.
no starting base....
Its unconvincing, because its smoke and mirrors. Give me the numbers of paying customers, over time with revenue. Then show the opex/capex.
DANmode•31m ago
Is it really a surprise later, the cost?
KaiserPro•6m ago
We have a project at the moment thats all based around sharepoint. They have ingested many tens of thousands of documents, and are expecting that MS copilot studio will be able to a) RAG and B) produce meaningful answers with a 4 line prompt.
eitally•1h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/EconomyCharts/comments/1lwdwd6/anth...
justapassenger•1h ago
KaiserPro•1h ago
sunir•45m ago
I absolutely love Anthropic; but I am worried about the fiscal wall they will hit that will ratchet up my opex as they will need to steeply raise prices.
simonw•23m ago
ares623•17m ago
manquer•1m ago
bangaladore•41m ago
diamond559•12m ago
tootie•1h ago
datadrivenangel•1h ago
If trends continue, all investment in the economy will be directed by about 6 people at a big AI company, and what will money mean at that point?