Modern AI data centers consume enormous amounts of power, and it looks like they will get even more power-hungry in the coming years as companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI strive towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). Oracle has already outlined plans to use nuclear power plants for its 1-gigawatt datacenters. It looks like Microsoft plans to do the same as it just inked a deal to restart a nuclear power plant to feed its data centers, reports Bloomberg.
Microsoft jumped fully on the AI hype bandwagon with their partnership in OpenAI and their strategy of forcing GenAI down our throats. Instead of realizing that GenAI is not much more than a novel parlor trick that can’t really solve problems, they are now fully committing.
Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, and reactivating 3 Mile Island is estimated at $1.6 billion. And any return on these investments are not guaranteed. Generally, GenAI is failing to live up to its promises and there is hardly any GenAI use case that actually makes money.
This actually has the potential of greatly damaging Microsoft, so I wouldn’t say all their decisions are financially rational and sound.
On the other hand, if they ever admit the whole genAI thing doesn’t work, they could just sell the electricity produced by the plant.
. . . The entire multi-billion-dollar hype train goes off the cliff. All the executives that backed it look like clowns, the layoffs come back to bite them - hard - and Microsoft wont recover for a decade.
I mean . . . a boy can dream
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GenAI = Generative AI
AGI = Artificial General Intelligence
You are talking about the latter. They were talking about the former.