I could imagine that the challenge is that that having enough solar panels for a few gigawatts of consumption is hard to do on-site, so one needs to connect the data center to the grid, which, in turn, complicates matters and transformators are scarce right now.
Is this about right? I do hope that we find a way to do this more sustainably. AI doesn't solve climate change in the next few years, so clean energy isn't irrelevant.
[0] https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-land...
I'm guessing probably not. If it was truly the no-brainer "cheap AND fast AND better" option everyone thinks it is, data centers would be rolling out renewables right now. They're not so dumb that they'd pass up on a superior, cheaper solution just because.
Because in my country (in Asia) there’s surplus energy from renewables (solar, wind) during the daytime, so much so that they’re having to shut things down because the grid can’t handle it (yet).
However at night we need power from traditional sources (coal, basically. We do have hydroelectric and nuclear power also, but that’s not sufficient).
They cannot shut down the coal plants during the day because apparently turning it back on is a tricky time consuming process.
They cannot run the coal plants at reduced capacity because that reduces the efficiency and increases the wear and tear of the equipment.
And the renewables also brought up another problem in that the power that comes is not steady (unlike the traditional sources).
All that is putting pressure on the grid.
The long term solution is to upgrade the grid to handle all this. And the government is working on it (I think). But that’ll take time to do. At least a decade.
Uhh, I don’t know much more technical details about all this. Maybe more knowledgeable members can contribute.
Or for every solar you need a generator as a backup!
Capital. Capital, capital, capital.
The EU is still not a single unified economy and capital markets remains semi-sovereign.
Every Euro that goes out of (eg.) a Dutch taxpayer's pocket into an (eg.) German domiciled competitor gets pushed back against by national competitors as well as by the government.
You see this with French and German rivalry against Scaleway+OVHCloud versus Hetzner (edited because of early morning brain snafus) to Dassault versus Airbus.
But the issue is, a single unified capital market that overrides national sovereignty also leaves vast swathes of European voters at risk of unemployment via capital flight. You saw this with East Germany's shift towards the AfD following industry's shift to Poland.
So neither industry nor national governments (who remain the overriding power of the EU) have an incentive for a single unified market, and actually remain incentivized to work with outside partners instead.
Doh, I meant Hetzner
> partly made possible by France's inexpensive energy mix
Not really. Both developed well before the energy crisis when energy wasn't a significant input for DC construction.
The reason both succeeded is because French conglomerates continue to invest within France and only buy French.
It also didn't hurt that Xavier Niel and Klaba were able to leverage their preexisting telecom business and network.
It's still viewed as a prestige post, and European industries and states will continue to work with partners outside of Europe if it means surviving.
Additonally, capital consolidation within the EU also means subnational capital flight which means layoffs. For example, look at how East Germany shifted hard to AfD after Germany Inc left for Poland. Therefore, when push comes to shove, it becomes politically untenable.
It's not the first time in recent history frontier technology has been developed and commercialized, before any of this "capital" you are talking about really existed. That's the easy part (print money). The hard part is, taking leadership to convince the citizens of a place to be... what? Do you know?
this spending of billions just to get a 4 month lead, without even trying to invest in getting this stuff to run properly is wasteful to the point of insanity. I don't think it's at all productive to chide people for not wanting to dump their resources into a black hole.
it seems pretty clear that the investors and the AI companies _like_ to throw around big GW numbers. it gives them a moat, and it fuels the bubble.
If they do relax regulation (especially on energy generation) sufficiently to unleash the continent's big brained boffins and entrepreneurs on AI, they could quickly develop their own advances that would give them real leverage.