How Big Cloud becomes Bigger: Scrutinizing Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's investments
In an AI gold rush, those selling the proverbial pickaxes are surest to win: cloud companies provide scalable managed computational resources as a subscr
Soundtrack: Mack Glocky - Chasing Cars
Last week, I spent a great deal of time and words framing the generative AI industry as a cynical con where OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei have used a compliant media and braindead investors to frame unprofitable, unsustainable, environmentally-damaging and mediocre cloud
"The most powerful new data center GPUs for AI workloads can consume as much as 700 watts apiece. With a 61% annual utilization, that would account for about 3,740,520 Wh or 3.74 MWh per year per GPU, fueling concerns about the availability of power and environmental impacts"
Millions of these chips are being sold every year.
https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/a-single-modern-ai-gpu-consumes-up-to-37-mwh-of-power-per-year-gpus-sold-last-year-alone-consume-more-power-than-13-million-households
Massive new AI data centres will generate millions of tonnes of electronic waste
Huge data centres built for generative AI will generate millions of tonnes of electronic waste by 2030, the equivalent of discarding billions of smartphones each year, a study suggests.