The Uncomfortable Truth About AI's Appetite
Let’s be brutally honest. The sheer amount of electricity required to train and run these new AI models is staggering. We’re told that training a single large model guzzles as much power as 17,000 British homes in a year. As these systems become woven into the fabric of our lives, that demand is only going one way. So, where on earth is all this power going to come from?
The usual renewable darlings, wind and solar, have a bit of a problem. They are, to put it mildly, intermittent. The sun, rather inconveniently, sets every evening. The wind sometimes stops blowing. An AI data centre, on the other hand, never clocks off. It needs a constant, unwavering torrent of power, 24 hours a day. Meta, in a moment of startling clarity, seems to have realised this, signing a deal to procure a colossal amount of nuclear energy. The first domino has fallen.