Energy & Environment
Energy and environment topics encompass the electricity consumption, water usage, and carbon emissions associated with training and operating AI models. Truncated covers power grid impacts, utility contracts, nuclear energy deals, and resource efficiency developments.
AI's Workforce Gap And The Lessons We Keep Forgetting
Forbes — The AI build-out will be won or lost not only in innovation, but in the meaningful building of human infrastructure.
The real test for the artificial intelligence build-out is what happens in 2028, analysts say
I measured my local LLM’s power bill and it costs less than a single $20 ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini subscription
XDA — The math isn't close, and it never really was
Data centers are turning to old jet engines as the wait for power grows
TechCrunch — The years-long wait for access to the grid and new turbines is causing data center builders to turn to an unusual, less efficient and less environmentally friendly solution: once-discarded jet engines.
Nokia: AI will equal half of all network traffic by 2035
sdxcentral.com — Report predicts capacity impact of agents, humanoids, and more
Generative AI uses more energy on non-English text
Tech Xplore — When processing and producing non-English text, generative AI burns more energy and sometimes provides less accurate answers, potentially reinforcing existing global inequalities, according to University of Michigan Engineering researchers.
Renewable Innovations joins US DOE lab project on fuel cell power for AI data centers
datacenterdynamics.com — Will include a field demonstration at the Sky Data Centers site in Santa Rosa, California
Let there be light—novel AI framework runs on optical hardware
Tech Xplore — Artificial intelligence is increasingly pervasive and capable but is also very hungry for power. Researchers, including those at the University of Tokyo, have developed a new approach to building physics-based AI—systems that use the natural behavior of physical systems to process information—that dramatically reduces the amount of computation required for them to run. The approach simplifies both how these systems learn and how they are structured. It was demonstrated using an optical computing system that processes information with light and could help pave the way toward faster and more energy-efficient AI hardware.
Activists across Europe prepare two days of protests against datacentres
the Guardian — More than 100 campaign groups will join together in 15 countries this week to call for a halt to major AI projects
After the midterms, a bigger clash over data centers could be coming
TechCrunch — Data center opposition crossed party lines in Tuesday’s midterms.
Goldman Sachs: 45% of planned US data centre capacity faces state pauses, but likely short-lived
investingLive — Goldman Sachs says states likely to tighten data centre rules hold about 45% of planned US capacity and expects temporary pauses after Democratic election…
Vistra plunges 13.5% as Texas election rattles AI power trade, KeyBanc downgrades By Investing.com
Investing.com — Vistra plunges 13.5% as Texas election rattles AI power trade, KeyBanc downgrades
Ai2 gets $5M from Google to turn AI weather model into a tool for projecting climate change
GeekWire — Google is giving the Allen Institute for AI about $5 million, plus $1.8 million in cloud credits, to turn NeuralGCM, a Google AI weather model, into an open-source tool for projecting climate change over the next five to 50 years. Ai2 plans to add the ocean to the model, work on making it reliable in a warmer world and release the code for training it.
Wall Street cuts Bitcoin miner price targets as newly blue Texas threatens data center boom
Democratic victories cloud outlook for AI data center rollout
Tech Xplore — Strong wins for Democratic candidates threaten the prospects for energy-guzzling data centers in key U.S. states, potentially slowing the AI rollout that has carried Wall Street forward over the past four years.
Ohio already has 125 local data center moratoriums. Early results from its 21 ballot measures on AI infrastructure have determined there will be more
Fortune — The Buckeye State has become the prototype for how the country will respond to the rapid buildout of AI.
Voters across the country reject data centers • Stateline
Stateline — In local elections across the country, Americans voted overwhelmingly to restrict the buildout of data centers in their communities. Late Tuesday evening, 33 ballot measures to restrict data centers were passed by voters or were leading in ongoing vote counts, according to the tracking website Data Centers on the Ballot. Roughly a dozen similar measures […]
OpenAI Wants to Rebrand AI Data Centers, Use Them to 'Protect the Grid'
Decrypt — ChatGPT maker OpenAI says future facilities could ease pressure on power grids by cutting demand during emergencies.
The US power market’s forecasting problem comes at a cost to ratepayers
Latitude Media — Experts at the Aurora Energy Transition Forum cautioned that the data center boom has thrown load forecasts into disarray.
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