How much electricity will be needed to power Microsoft’s new $80 billion AI system?

Photo above - So easy a caveman could figure it out? How much extra electricity is needed for both EVs and exponentially expanding AI data centers?

$80 Billion is A LOT. That’s how much Microsoft is spending on new AI data centers in 2025 alone. (see link below). What could you buy with that instead? 250 Boeing 747s, and start your own airline. 2 million Teslas. The entire nation of Costa Rica. (Zillow estimate, based on Google Street view images.)

Wait . . . come back to that other one. TWO MILLION TESLAS???!!! Holy Mohammed!

Okay . . . someone is going to produce reply with a link to a photo showing solar panels on the roof of some Microsoft building. Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it. There is NO WAY to get that much electric power power. Solar panels generate 150 watts per square meter, under ideal conditions. Which excludes cloudy days, dawn, dusk, and night. An average size data center sucks up 1.3 megawatts of electricity continuously, 24/7. Those rooftop solar panels are mostly props. Maybe they power the lights in the parking lot?

Someone else is going to produce a link showing that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon want to build private nuclear power plants. If you’re not even MORE alarmed at this, you need to watch the HBO “Chernobyl” mini-series. Or the recent documentaries about Fukushima. The plant is STILL leaking 300 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean daily. The fish we eat all have extra background radiation now, because of one Japanese earthquake.

Microsoft says there will (eventually) be a silver lining. But probably not in 2025. In the meantime, they admit their $80 Billion science project “will disrupt the economy and displace some jobs" (exact quote).

There were 1 million EVs sold in 2023. Almost all of those need to be plugged into a grid powered by fossil fuels too. Will successive generations look back at today’s mashup of insatiable AI electricity demand, and exponential EV sales as being “so dumb a caveman could have figured it out?”

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Microsoft is spending $80 billion on data centers this year

JSul3 · 70-79

Well, you could check out the huge bitcoin mining facility in Granbury, TX.....uses a ton of electricity and is making residents sick.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@JSul3 good reply. thanks, i did see that.

the latest "thing" in AI/data centers is to put them in places like Greenland and Iceland. Because it's so cold there you don't have to air condition all those warehouses full of hot steaming servers.

JSul3 · 70-79

@SusanInFlorida Gov. Abbott did it to prove he brought businesses to Texas...but ignores the impact on the already strained grid, and could care less about the health and safety of Texans.