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cogman10 • yesterday at 9:27 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

Did your datacenter consume 9GW?

I get it, a lot of the older data centers consumed relatively little power. More than nothing but manageable like 1 or 2MW.

The reason for the "craze" is that the AI datacenters being built are monstrosities that consume way more power, an order of magnitude or more. And a lot of them are going up.


Replies

dipierro • yesterday at 11:22 PM

I don’t think that 1MW is something older datacenters consumed. Unless you are talking about a single rack in a corporate server room.

It is a monthly consumption of a poorly insulated house with air conditioning running 24/7. Or around 1344 W of constant consumption.

Older DCs relied on much less efficient compute and cooling, and the only reason why their power usage could be less is simply much smaller scale.

aftbit • yesterday at 11:11 PM

>However, using a computer cursor to highlight the redacted text box in the report to DWEE, then copying and pasting it into a separate document reveals that Agate LLC is reporting 52.65 megawatts of electricity during peak electrical demand and 13.299 megagallons of water between cooling towers, evaporative systems and site operations in the last year. That totals out to 13 million gallons of water.

The data center discussed in the article allegedly consumed 53 MW peak and 13 megagallons of water over a year.

T-A • yesterday at 9:41 PM

> Did your datacenter consume 9GW?

I think the largest data centers consume about 1 GW.

https://www.enconnex.com/data-center-energy-consumption-and-...

https://techplustrends.com/1gw-data-center-power-consumption...

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lokar • yesterday at 10:53 PM

There were certainly 1GW DCs in the US 10+ years ago.

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