• xthexder@l.sw0.com
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    17 hours ago

    The type of datacenters running lemmy and other services are nothing like the AI datacenters being built. Some of the AI datacenters are literally 1000x bigger in terms of power consumption than existing data center buildings are using. They’re trying to build a 10 Gigawatt AI datacenter in Ohio, and it will need its own power station to run it.

    I own my server and colocate it, and it’s sitting in what looks like a normal office building. You would never know from the sidewalk directly outside that there’s a hub for AWS and Google Cloud right there. The amount of cooling required is small enough they can just use regular air conditioning units on the roof, and none of this evaporating water crap.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I run my VPS from AWS and it’s in one of those huge data centers, so it just depends on what service you’re using

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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        9 hours ago

        Unless you’re renting a GPU instance, I highly doubt your VPS is in one of these 1GW AI facilities, they’re mostly used privately by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, or other companies specifically renting AI training capacity.

        AWS has had existing datacenters for decades now and while they’re quite large, they’re a fraction of the size the AI industry is demanding. They were also built before regulations started getting changed in favor of more datacenters, so they’re actually following the zoning rules about noise, water, and power consumption.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          I’ve rented one before, but it’s too expensive now. Technically, since I ran Katago on it you might consider it AI