Monday, April 1st 2024
US Government Wants Nuclear Plants to Offload AI Data Center Expansion
The expansion of AI technology affects not only the production and demand for graphics cards but also the electricity grid that powers them. Data centers hosting thousands of GPUs are becoming more common, and the industry has been building new facilities for GPU-enhanced servers to serve the need for more AI. However, these powerful GPUs often consume over 500 Watts per single card, and NVIDIA's latest Blackwell B200 GPU has a TGP of 1000 Watts or a single kilowatt. These kilowatt GPUs will be present in data centers with 10s of thousands of cards, resulting in multi-megawatt facilities. To combat the load on the national electricity grid, US President Joe Biden's administration has been discussing with big tech to re-evaluate their power sources, possibly using smaller nuclear plants. According to an Axios interview with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, she has noted that "AI itself isn't a problem because AI could help to solve the problem." However, the problem is the load-bearing of the national electricity grid, which can't sustain the rapid expansion of the AI data centers.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reportedly talking with firms, most notably hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to start considering nuclear fusion and fission power plants to satisfy the need for AI expansion. We have already discussed the plan by Microsoft to embed a nuclear reactor near its data center facility and help manage the load of thousands of GPUs running AI training/inference. However, this time, it is not just Microsoft. Other tech giants are reportedly thinking about nuclear as well. They all need to offload their AI expansion from the US national power grid and develop a nuclear solution. Nuclear power is a mere 20% of the US power sourcing, and DOE is currently financing a Holtec Palisades 800-MW electric nuclear generating station with $1.52 billion in funds for restoration and resumption of service. Microsoft is investing in a Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) microreactor energy strategy, which could be an example for other big tech companies to follow.
Source:
Axios
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reportedly talking with firms, most notably hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to start considering nuclear fusion and fission power plants to satisfy the need for AI expansion. We have already discussed the plan by Microsoft to embed a nuclear reactor near its data center facility and help manage the load of thousands of GPUs running AI training/inference. However, this time, it is not just Microsoft. Other tech giants are reportedly thinking about nuclear as well. They all need to offload their AI expansion from the US national power grid and develop a nuclear solution. Nuclear power is a mere 20% of the US power sourcing, and DOE is currently financing a Holtec Palisades 800-MW electric nuclear generating station with $1.52 billion in funds for restoration and resumption of service. Microsoft is investing in a Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) microreactor energy strategy, which could be an example for other big tech companies to follow.
98 Comments on US Government Wants Nuclear Plants to Offload AI Data Center Expansion
But I'm actually a big fan of nuclear energy, so this is good news on my end. Even if this whole AI thing turns out to be empty hype, we need the energy capacity anyway.
They start to realise the ridiculousness of predictions for AI takeover given the practical constraints of building data centers and power stations. Don't tell stock holders?
Notwithstanding the killer apps that either generate or cut costs by hundreds of billions needed to justify all the costs.
Yes, oil's pump-loving friends wouldn't like to see their main commodity lose value any faster.
Personally, I think it's a bit of a farce that it's come to this, especially after the US has turned its back on nuclear. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all, huh?
We are already investing in transport. That got killed with Ronnie back in the 80s but Biden is picking it back up.
The issue is getting out of the private model and going with a national model. But that hurts stock prices so there is always screaming.
One question though, out of my lack of knowledge (as you mentioned vast desert regions): how well integrated is the transmission power grid in the US?
Every state is different but most are dated.
Wind and solar themselves aren't reliable enough for steady power generation because both are at the mercy of weather to how much they can produce at any given time.
While they can be used as a supplement, it's just not feasable to base what's needed on them for overall power generation.
As a side bonus, many SMR designs are designed to use fuel that can be recycled, slowing the need for uranium mining and allowing for a much more robust economy where they aren't just stuck in storage, and more like France's nuclear program where they aggressively recycle their nuclear fuels to prolong reserves and reduce waste.
That's where batteries like these come in—priced at 1/10 of lithium batteries, they could potentially use 50% of a desert like Mojave, providing dozens of gigawatts of power available for the night. it could be capable of supplying even large cities with power for days.
Best of all, iron-air batteries are practically infinite. You simply melt down the rusty metal, and magically, you have a new battery.
Transmission power grid in the US is relatively well-integrated, but there are challenges. The grid consists of three main interconnections: the Eastern Interconnection, Western Interconnection, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). These interconnections enable the transfer of electricity over long distances and help ensure reliability.
Btw, the grid faces challenges due to its age and the increasing demand for electricity. Aging infrastructure, including transmission lines and substations, can lead to reliability issues and power outages.
If we had fusion reactors, energy would be practically infinite.
The iron-air battery sounds great but it's still very far from being a viable comercial solution unfortunately.
Nuclear has a lot of problems too, the biggest one right now is how we gradually stopped using them out of FUD and stupidity and it will take time to scale the know how to build and operate them again, but it's one of the cleanest and cheapest ways to meet our baseload demand that will only increase as technology advances and as we scale up active carbon capture which is our only hope of reverting the effects of almost a century of emissions.It's not that big of a problem with high voltage but it is another problem to be solved, or rather another huge infrastructure project. Nuclear can rely on cheap AC transformers, as does wind, but solar and storage need huge inverters built.
Not to mention impractical as hell
They could throw windmills and solar panels up the next day but a reactor of any type would take decades :laugh:
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To ensure I didn't stray off-topic I can see a possible ramification of this where if enough power stations go on line they might dump excess power generation into the grid. Grid systems might finally get the necessary TLC in turn. On the other hand prepare to receive bills from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon and prey social credit systems aren't tied to your power bill.