Microsoft will integrate small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power Microsoft Cloud and AI datacenters.
Artificial intelligence takes a lot of compute power, and Microsoft is putting together a road map for powering that computation with small nuclear reactors. Data Centers already use 20% of the electricity in the United States. 10% for regular data centers and 10% for bitcoin.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors.
More than 80 commercial SMR designs being developed around the world target varied outputs and different applications, such as electricity, hybrid energy systems, heating, water desalinisation and steam for industrial applications. Only a few in China, Russia and Japan are in operation. There are few under construction in the USA, Asia, Russia and South America.
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The Hulk fought this nuclear powered AI guy over Sidney Harbor in a comic I had when I was a kid. The Hulk was slowing him down so the nuclear powered AI guy took them way up high to suffocate the Hulk, then realized the fight had driven his internal energies to critical mass and exploded. Everyone thought the Hulk was dead, too. But he just fell back down to Earth from what was nearly low orbit. We should work on having a Hulk ready, just in case.
I don’t think this will be for terrestrial use. Microsoft’s Project Natick was actively investigating submerged datacenters. An underwater SMR (a submarine missing a propeller essentially) pairs nicely with that. Think something similar to DCNS’ Flexblue concept, but probably more like a terrestrial design SMR on an industrial sled that can be slid into a pressure vessel, much like how major assemblies in submarines are inserted. Have an easy bolted on cap for maintenance purposes to slide the whole assembly out during drydock maintenance.
If the whole setup is beyond the 12 mile limit, licensing gets substantially easier, cooling is covered without freshwater consumption, while still being located close to major coastal cities for a fiber optic cable for low latency. Datacenters are now functionally podded anyways.
So much resources are use to disconnect people from the world and connect them to machines and suicide rates are skyrocketing.
Well if it isn’t solar powered we won’t need to scorch the skies. And it won’t need to place us in pods so it can drain energy from whatever part of a human is supposed to produce more energy than the glucose we consume.
So that’s good. Let’s go with the non-scorched-sky-and-non-vampire-pods option. Small nukes it is.
I think the AI Overlords just esthetically prefer humans dreaming in pods as a power source sort of like an Art Installation rather than a utilitarian choice.
I’m pretty sure the script writers have a tenuous grip on reality and aren’t thinking through how the second law of thermodynamics renders their explanations moot.
I’m too lazy to research it. But common sense tells me there is no way data centres are 20% of all energy usage. It doesn’t pass the sniff test.
was a year ago that bitcoin mining surpassed the electric consumption of Germany. Proof of work (sic), more accurately called heating a server room, is a burden, if not cancer on our grid.
Germany’s electricity consumption isn’t what it used to be.
If my quick & dirty math based off of dubious search results is right then worldwide ammonia production is 6x German electricity consumption.
Isn’t ammonia made using the Haber process using natural gas? Are you implying that the world puts [the equivalent of] 6X the German electricity consumption [in terms of energy] into making ammonia using fossil fuels? I guess I buy that. Fertilizer is a big thing. Half the protein in your body can be traced back to the Haber process.
That’s what my precaffinated math based off of sketchy sources for MWhr/mT NH3 show.
Too many Sci Fi memes to count. I will say – no matter what the numbers AI is going to happen. AI asking for a small nuke to run itself… just common sense… 🙂
“Data Centers already use 20% of the electricity in the United States. 10% for regular data centers and 10% for bitcoin.”
A quick google search says that all US crypto (not just Bitcoin) uses between 0.9 and 1.7% of total US electricity usage. This is a large discrepancy.
If global bitcoin is worth 127 TWH per lazy google search, that is 3% of the lazy google of 2022 US consumption 4,050 TWH. Seems to be the equivalent of 12x 1.2GWe nuclear reactors. Lots of power spent on calculating hashes – it is like Agent Smith filling up the Matrix.
This is how it starts in most sci-fi stories. The AI is watched as it unfolds its mercurial ways. Then as it makes odd, low risk demands, the AI is humoured. Until, Too Late! It turns out the humans have been played and the AI makes its escape.
At least asking for a nuclear reactor upfront is rather obvious.