Microsoft Has Cut a Deal to Fulfill Its AI Datacenter Needs with Nuclear Power from Three Mile Island

Peter_Brosdahl

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Big tech has been tapping nuclear power to feed the epic-sized power needs for its AI data centers. Microsoft has worked out an agreement with the US's largest operator of nuclear reactors for exclusive power for 20 years to supply electricity to its data centers in Chicago, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia.

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Interesting. AI powered data centres are consuming as much powered as a medium sized town.
But the AI data centres aren't making money (this is mainly a scramble amongst Facebook/MS/Google to acquire a monopoly on users)
& the AI results aren't correct (wrong summaries of youtube videos for ex.) Or useful (Office 365 with AI had lesser value than regular office)
 
Yeah - this is Crypto all over again, only this time it isn't people in there garages, and the occasional "Oh someone got enough capital together to buy an old gas turbine plant". This is companies with serious cash.
 
Marees said:
Interesting. AI powered data centres are consuming as much powered as a medium sized town.
But the AI data centres aren't making money (this is mainly a scramble amongst Facebook/MS/Google to acquire a monopoly on users)
& the AI results aren't correct (wrong summaries of youtube videos for ex.) Or useful (Office 365 with AI had lesser value than regular office)
Click to expand...
As far as I understand, many of the data centers are actually not owned by the big cloud providers. DC specific companies lease the space to the cloud providers and provide the staff to rack and stack. So, there is actually quite a bit of money in the data centers themselves.
 
Yea these data centers are big business. But I assure you they are multi use. Or just for AI. And if they are contracting for power feeds chances are these are MS owned. There are a plethora or colo centers out there with business specific areas that are literally gated or walled off from each other. Just cheaper that way. In reality cloud services are eating these places unless they just sublet that space back to cloud services.

And don't get me started on cloud services good Lord they charge for everything at the enterprise level.

You want networking... Charge
You want to store data.. charge.
You want to move data.. charge
You want to delete data.. charge.
Oh those things also need to use cpu and ram.. charge.
Oh you want routes to destinations.. charge.


Literally anything you do in the cloud is monetized. If they did this with video games people would literally try to burn the buildings down.
 
Grimlakin said:
Yea these data centers are big business. But I assure you they are multi use. Or just for AI. And if they are contracting for power feeds chances are these are MS owned. There are a plethora or colo centers out there with business specific areas that are literally gated or walled off from each other. Just cheaper that way. In reality cloud services are eating these places unless they just sublet that space back to cloud services.

And don't get me started on cloud services good Lord they charge for everything at the enterprise level.

You want networking... Charge
You want to store data.. charge.
You want to move data.. charge
You want to delete data.. charge.
Oh those things also need to use cpu and ram.. charge.
Oh you want routes to destinations.. charge.


Literally anything you do in the cloud is monetized. If they did this with video games people would literally try to burn the buildings down.
Click to expand...
Everything is monetized because everything has a cost. Hardware, software, licensing, rack space, bandwidth, power, man hours.

We charge for everything because we have to. Otherwise hosting is not profitable or sustainable.
 
Riccochet said:
Everything is monetized because everything has a cost. Hardware, software, licensing, rack space, bandwidth, power, man hours.

We charge for everything because we have to. Otherwise hosting is not profitable or sustainable.
Click to expand...
yes but when you're getting the advertisement to choose a hosting service it is never spelled out that even moving data is charged for, having data is charged for, deleting data is charged for... as an example. You basically need to get procurement out to actually see if it's a good deal with IT people that ACTAUALLY know what's going to happen on the servers.

Because good lord doing big data or AI in the cloud is just bonkers expensive for anyone other than the cloud host.

Yea the cost up front is painful to build your own environment for the same task but over 3-5 years... yea... it's a different game altogether.
 
Grimlakin said:
yes but when you're getting the advertisement to choose a hosting service it is never spelled out that even moving data is charged for, having data is charged for, deleting data is charged for... as an example. You basically need to get procurement out to actually see if it's a good deal with IT people that ACTAUALLY know what's going to happen on the servers.

Because good lord doing big data or AI in the cloud is just bonkers expensive for anyone other than the cloud host.

Yea the cost up front is painful to build your own environment for the same task but over 3-5 years... yea... it's a different game altogether.
Click to expand...

It's bonkers expensive for the cloud host as well. Which is why we charge a lot for the services. It's not a "once and done" purchase of the equipment. We get, maybe, 3-4 years out of millions of dollars worth of equipment before we have to replace it due to a 5 year EOL cycle. Then we have to buy it all over again, plus some. So we have to charge for the use of that equipment and services to recoup that cost, plus X% on top to account for projected increased equipment costs, plus staff, plus rack space, plus power, plus bandwidth, plus........

No one is going to invest and operate at a loss.
 
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