UK Needs More Nuclear To Power AI, Says Amazon Boss
- Reference: 0177564783
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/05/16/2133225/uk-needs-more-nuclear-to-power-ai-says-amazon-boss
- Source link:
> Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is part of the retail giant Amazon, plans to spend 8 billion pounds on new data centers in the UK over the next four years. Matt Garman, chief executive of AWS, told the BBC nuclear is a "great solution" to data centres' energy needs as "an excellent source of zero carbon, 24/7 power." AWS is the single largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world and has funded more than 40 renewable solar and wind farm projects in the UK.
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> The UK's 500 data centres currently consume 2.5% of all electricity in the UK, while Ireland's 80 hoover up 21% of the country's total power, with those numbers projected to hit 6% and 30% respectively by 2030. The body that runs the UK's power grid estimates that by 2050 data centers alone will use nearly as much energy as all industrial users consume today.
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> In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Matt Garman said that future energy needs were central to AWS planning process. "It's something we plan many years out," he said. "We invest ahead. I think the world is going to have to build new technologies. I believe nuclear is a big part of that particularly as we look 10 years out."
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewd5014wpno
It can't be ready in time (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a pipe dream - at best it would take 10 years to bring new plants online. The state of AI will be very different by then.
Not that I'm against a push for nuclear, I'm very in favor of that for a variety of reasons, but feeding the AI behemoth isn't one of the use cases.
Re: (Score:2)
10 years is the time it takes for the Chinese to get a plant online from the point of breaking ground. It'll take another 10 years on top of that to permit, prepare an area, setup the project, resource the construction, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
10 years is wildly optimistic. Hinkley Point C was supposed to be 20 years, but has been delayed. Sizewell C hasn't started construction yet, but even if it was greenlit tomorrow they are projecting 20 years.
Amazon is the Center of the Universe! (Score:2)
Says grossly overpaid Amazon/Bezos oligarch spokesperson.
Translation: All government and private policy and spending exists solely to increase the personal wealth of Bezos, Trump, and the oligarch clique.
As the saying goes (Score:3)
> Translation: All government and private policy and spending exists solely to increase the personal wealth of Bezos, Trump, and the oligarch clique.
Just another example of, "Socialize the risk, privatize the profits".
You pay for it then (Score:3)
Dear Mr Garman,
No one needs your hallucinating pieces of garbage ... that aren't any better than a search engine.
Let Amazon Pay (Score:2)
Other users should not have to pay for Amazon's insatiable diet for electricity. If Amazon want more, they should pay for it. That is also true elsewhere, especially in the U.S., where state utility regulators keep raising the cost of electricity on everyone to meet the demand from growing data centers.
Re: Let Amazon Pay (Score:3)
The problem with private companies starting power stations for their personal ventures is, what happens if this whole AI thing doesn't really turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread? I feel like we're already starting to find that to be the case now. Do we end up with a half-finished megaproject sitting abandoned (like Foxconn's WI plant), or worse, a fully built nuclear reactor Amazon wants to shutdown and abandon to become a Superfund site they won't have to pay to decommission?
Dog bites man. (Score:2)
Massive consumer of electricity comes out in favor of building massive amounts of electrical generation with other people's money.
May as well have said "water still makes things wet."
Does it really? (Score:2)
What's all this AI for? So far all I can see it doing is replacing customer service reps and a handful of programmers.
Is that worth building nuclear power plants for?
Not that anyone's going to ask any of us. We gave up our rights and our political power and our right to vote. And we got the stupidest things imaginable in exchange for them.
Re: (Score:2)
AI will be used to improve robots which will replace most menial work but at least some of us will be useful as spare parts for the superior humans
AI needs energy? check. Needs nuclear? Um... (Score:2)
... not necessarily.
I'm not saying the energy can't or shouldn't come from nuclear, I'm saying you shouldn't be saying up front where it must come from (unless there is only one viable source, which isn't the case here).
There are obvious reasons to avoid anything that will contribute to global warming of there are feasible/cost-effective alternatives, but that's not the same as saying "we must have nuclear plants."
Until you've put solar panels, wind plants, wave generation, geothermal, etc. everywhere that
Central to their planning? (Score:2)
If it's so central for their planning, they could just pay to get them build.
Re: (Score:2)
What are the regulators supposed to do?
EPR is approved, everything else isn't ready to approve. Not their fault almost everything is pie in the sky.
Alternatively.... (Score:2)
Alternatively, the UK (and indeed the world) can give a big F-you to AI and the tech bros pushing it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, no, no, a country cannot allow an "AI" gap!
Re: (Score:2)
Right... there will be a hallucination deficit!
AI nuclear civilisation :o (Score:3)
Reminds me of how the denizins of Easter Island went extinct in pursuit of building those statues. The people cut down every last tree, likely to transport and erect their monumental Moai statues, which were deeply tied to religion, status, and identity.
In doing so, they undermined their ecological foundation: no trees meant no canoes (so no fishing), soil erosion (so poor agriculture), and eventual famine, conflict, and population collapse.
Now, in the modern world, we’re seeing something eerily similar:
LOL (Score:2)
These technology companies think that a solution that is 20 years away is going to solve their problem today. It's like time is not a variable in any of their thought process. You can plan all the nuclear power you want, all that will happen is your datacentre lights stay off for 2 decades at which point you will no longer exist because less stupid companies actually implemented solutions in a shorter timeframe.
Build tidal power stations (Score:4, Insightful)
The technology has never been developed; if a proportion of what is thrown at nuclear was spent on tidal generation we'd all be far better off, and especially in the UK where we've got BIG tides to harness!
The French did it in 1966 - but since then it's largely fallen out of fashion.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station
Re: (Score:2)
It's still being worked on in some places. Oregon State University just partnered to [1]create a tidal energy proving ground [pacwaveenergy.org] off the US west coast.
Hopefully it remains open in light of certain political situations. Oregon State gets a hell of a lot of research grants.
[1] https://pacwaveenergy.org/
Re: (Score:3)
Scotland has.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like Severn barrage might be going ahead now in some form. Not really a barrage but still able to make use of the tides to generate reliable, consistent electricity.
The UK should abandon nuclear. We can't build it at a reasonable price or in a reasonable time frame. This guy says we need it for AI but if we start today then will it be at all relevant when it comes online in 25 years? Because that's how long it takes to build here.
Planning for demand in 25 years is difficult, and no commercial opera