Stumbled on a wild stat about AI training energy use last night

I was reading a breakdown from MIT Technology Review and found out that training one big language model can use as much electricity as 100 homes in a year. That honestly blew my mind because I never thought about the physical cost behind all this AI stuff. Does anyone know if newer models are getting more efficient or is it just getting worse with each release?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jordan21d ago

The MIT guys are smart but all these comparisons make me crazy. Like, do they count the mining rigs for crypto versus the 24/7 AC running in server rooms? My buddy used to work at a data center in Arizona and said the cooling alone was like running a constant car wash with liquid nitrogen or something insane. I just wonder if we are building a ton of dumb infrastructure before we even figure out if AI actually pays for itself.

craig.nathan21d ago

Wait, does that include the energy to cool those GPU farms in the first place?

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