News OpenAI's gargantuan data center is even bigger than Elon Musk's xAI Colossus — world's largest 300 MW AI data center in Texas could reach record 1...

[Admin]

OpenAI, which is already operating a 300 MW data center, is building a gigawatt-scale AI data center in Texas, which will further strain the regional power grid.

OpenAI's gargantuan data center is even bigger than Elon Musk's xAI Colossus — world's largest 300 MW AI data center in Texas could reach record 1... : Read more

 

[bit_user]

However, if several large data centers (or one giant data center, such as the one used by OpenAI) suddenly reduce their power draw, it could send shockwaves through the rest of the grid, causing other power consumers or generators to shut down, and potentially triggering a chain of failures.

Imagine someone does a DDOS attack that's basically just submitting a whole bunch of queries during a period that's normally low activity. Then, as suddenly as they started, they all stop. Do that several times and maybe trigger a grid outage. If the datacenter is used to service any government or military contracts, or other datacenters on the same power network, then it could be part of a larger cyberattack to undermine military readiness or responsiveness.

Unless they find an exploit allowing them to send free queries, it might require having paid accounts, but a state actor could certainly afford that.

 

[derekullo]

Dr. Emmett Brown: No, no, no, no, no, this sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need.

Guess we made it full circle !

 

[derekullo]

Imagine someone does a DDOS attack that's basically just submitting a whole bunch of queries during a period that's normally low activity. Then, as suddenly as they started, they all stop. Do that several times and maybe trigger a grid outage. If the datacenter is used to service any government or military contracts, or other datacenters on the same power network, then it could be part of a larger cyberattack to undermine military readiness or responsiveness.

Unless they find an exploit allowing them to send free queries, it might require having paid accounts, but a state actor could certainly afford that.

I'd imagine they have some way to isolate the load from the grid, such as a large bank of capacitors in the "massive on-site electrical substation".
Or you could simply guarantee a minimum load by doing other calculations in the background if the load becomes too low ... mine crypto.

 

[Zescion]

Not an expert, but I don't think datacenters are connected directly to the grid. To my knowledge, large capacitors are used to smooth energy demand fluctuations.
The problem still stands, who is going to pay for those large systems.

 

[JRStern]

Not an expert, but I don't think datacenters are connected directly to the grid. To my knowledge, large capacitors are used to smooth energy demand fluctuations.
The problem still stands, who is going to pay for those large systems.

There are big voltage stabilizers, generally mechanical (spinning), were in the news recently because Spain's grid collapsed through insufficient regulation (probably), perhaps intentionally being tested (ROFLMAO). Something like that might indeed be appropriate here. In theory might even be done more electronically including giant ultra-capacitors but I don't think that has ever actually been done on such a scale.

 

[SomeoneElse23]

Maybe a reality check of the power requirements will bring an end to this "AI" insanity.

Maybe.

 

[DS426]

Congress needs to be brought up to speed on this and pass regulation on this as the uncertainties are just too high for all parties -- private corporations, utility providers, and the public. I'm typically not one for regulation, btw... Anyways, start with mandating any datacenter or any other kind of electricity-consuming entity to be isolated to its own power system if over N Megawatts, e.g. >= 100 MW requires an isolated power system. This would ensure both reliability for the isolated system as a failure in the rest of the grid wouldn't bring it down and vice-versa. A private utility provider would be required -- forget having this kind of burden on a public utility that already has enough problems of their own in terms of grid stability and cybersecurity-related resilience.

Water consumption would also need to be addressed. Evaporative cooling is efficient but over-relied on by some corps like Microsoft. Geothermal seems to remain rare for datacenter cooling, granted I understand it's more efficient for heating than for cooling. Guessing it's a considered a cost issue??

I'm all for innovation, but it has to be responsible. It doesn't matter how great the opportunity of AI is; wreckless growth can and does have serious consequences.

 

[pointa2b]

Hopefully this signals to the US government that bureaucracy around getting power plants built need to be streamlined, so the country can respond faster to increased electric demand.

 

[drajitsh]

I liked how musk provided 150 MW of batteries -- that would probably take take of most of demand fluctuations