Data Centers to Train and Run AI May Soon Contain Millions of Chips, Cost Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and Require Power Equivalent to a Large City’s Electricity Grid, DIRICTY GRID, IF the Current Treatment.
That’s according to a new study From Researchers at Georgetown, Epoch AI, and Rand, which looked at the growth training of ai data centers Around the World from 2019 to this year. The co-authors compiled and analyzed a data set of over 500 ai data center projects and found that, while the computational performance of data of data center is more than dualing annual Capital Expenditures.
The Findings Illustrate The Challenge in Building The Necessary Infrastructure to Support the Development of Ai Technologies in the Coming Decade.
Openai, which recently said that roughly 10% of the world’s population is using its chatgpt platform, has a partnership With softbank and others to raise up to $ 500 billion to establish a network of ai data centers in the US (And Possibly ElsewhereOther tech giats, including Microsoft, Googleand AWSHave collectively pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone expanding their data center footprints.
According to the georgetown, epoch, and rand study, the hardware costs for ai data centers like xai’s colossus, which have a price tag of 7 billion, increased 1.9x each yaar betwayen 2017 and 2025, While Power Needs Climbed 2x Annually over the same period. (Colossus Draws An Estimated 300 Megawats of Power, as Much as 250,000 Households.)
The study also found that data centers have become much more energy efficient in the last five years, with one key metric – Computational Performance Per Watt – Increating These improvements won’t be enough to make up for growing power needs. By June 2030, The Leading AI Data Center May Have 2 Million AI Chips, Cost $ 200 Billion, and require 9 gw of power – roughly the output of 9 nuclear reactors.
It’s not a new revival that AI Data Center Electricity Demands are on pace to green strain the power gridData Center Energy INTAKE is Forecast to Grow 20% by 2030, According to a recent wells fargo analysisThat count push renewable sources of power, which are dependent on variable weather, to their limits – spurring a ramp-up in non-Renewable, Environmentally Damaging Electricity Sources Like Fossil Fuels.
AI Data Centers also Pose Other Environmental ThreatsSuch as high water consumption, and take up Valuable real estate, as well as erode state tax bases. A study by Good Jobs First, A Washington, DC-Based Nonprofit, estimates That at least 10 states lose over $ 100 million per year in tax revenue to data centers, the result of overly generous incentives.
It’s possible that these projections may not come to pass, of course, or that the time scales are off-kilter. Some Hyperscals, Like AWS and MicrosoftHave pulled back on data center projects in the last seveal weeks. In a note to investors in mid-spril, Analysts at Cowen Observed that there’s been a “cooling” in the data center market in early 2025, Signaling the industry’s fear of unstainable expansion.