- To comment on using direct current rather than alternating current, at least NVIDIA is working on 800VDC:
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-800-v-hvdc-architec...
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/building-the-800-vdc-ecosy...
More generally, a bunch of the electrical industry heavyweights are involved in a standard for DC microgrids called Current/OS: https://currentos.org/
There are certainly advantages to DC vs AC, but there's of course a huge amount of sunken cost in contemporary AC networks.
- From a purely engineering perspective I think it becomes difficult to argue with the gas turbine once you get into the gigawatt class of data center. The amount of land required for this much solar is not to be understated. In many practical scenarios the solar array would need to be located a distance away from the actual data center. This implies transmission infrastructure which is often the hardest part of any electrical engineering project. You can put a gigawatt of N+1 generation on a 50 acre site with gas. It's dispatchable 24/7/365 and you can store energy for pennies on the dollar at incredible scale.
Having both forms of generation available at the same time is the best solution. Once you put a data center on the grid you can mix the fuel however you want upstream. This should be the ultimate goal and I believe it is for all current AI projects. I am not aware of any data center builds that intend to operate on parking lot generators indefinitely.
- Slightly OT, but I see the Chinese are talking about space DCs now too which would suggest they reckon it could work too. (Unlike me and others here)
by phtrivier
1 subcomments
- I'm curious about Handmeier's opinion on location of data centers.
Should they be close to the solar arrays (that is, in the desert, with data networks connecting them to were the tokens are used)
Or close to their customers (which mean far from the solar arrays, with electricity networks)
He's talking a lot about removing movable parts, but aren't the wires going to be an limiting factor ?
- it is difficult to comprehend for me that soneone spends all this time thinking through and calculating how to harness as much energy as possible and then wants to use it for large language models instead of something useful, like food production, communication, transport or any other way of satisfying actual human material needs. what weird priorities.
by ErroneousBosh
5 subcomments
- Why are we wasting resources on toy chatbots?
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