Sustainability in HPC

This page is a central point for topics related to reducing the carbon footprint of large-scale HPC and AI infrastructure.

Scale

• “One gigawatt is enough energy to power about 750,000 homes.”¹
• “Vantage has started to see deals with tenants in the 100- to 500-megawatt range “that are specifically in support of AI on a dedicated basis for customers,” he said.”²

Locations

• “Major data-center markets include Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Phoenix and Silicon Valley. But increasingly, development is spreading to secondary markets, including northern Indiana, Idaho, Arkansas and Kansas, according to CBRE.”¹
• “there are still many places, including a swath from Pennsylvania to Illinois, with an oversupply of power.”³
• See https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/dc_na_boom/ (or really North America Data Center Trends H1 2024 | CBRE)
• CoreWeave: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/blue-owl-chirisa-and-powerhouse-announce-5bn-data-center-jv-for-coreweave/
• xAI’s Colossus cluster has a significant carbon footprint in the Memphis area.

Government concerns

• US DOE considers building AI data center testbed, setting data center standards, grid upgrade tariffs

Players

• Silver Lake, Vantage, DigitalBridge²

Nuclear

Nuclear power is a zero-carbon source of energy that provides the base load power required by large AI data centers.

Footnotes

1. Arizona Deal Latest Sign of Booming Demand for Sites to Power AI ↩ ↩²

2. New Data-Center Property Investment Signals AI Boom ↩ ↩²

3. Tech Industry Wants to Lock Up Nuclear Power for AI ↩