Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity–and the Backlash Has Begun(singularityhub.com)
singularityhub.com
Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity–and the Backlash Has Begun
https://singularityhub.com/2026/05/22/data-centers-now-consume-6-of-electricity-in-the-us-and-the-backlash-has-begun/
42 comments
I just discovered that a bunch of repos that I forked on github are running all sorts of Actions daily, to the tune of $200/month.I don't get charged for it because they're public repos. But its evidently doing a bunch of zombie compute, and is happening across everyone's forks... Maybe it's partly why github is shit now.
We need reliable and ubiquitous checkpointing, then it won't matter if your workload executes in a container runtime or in a WASM sandbox or even on bare metal.
During the dot com boom they said data centers consumed 8% of US electricity. It was later proven to be a lie, created with fake studies by coal companies to trick the US into building more coal power plants using environmental activist outrage to implant the idea that the internet needs coal into the mainstream. Make of that what you will
Even assuming this was true at all, something happening 30 years ago is not evidence that the exact same thing is happening today.
> It was later proven to be a lie
Source?
Source?
China might not win on GPU or Software Stack, but they will definitely win on the lower end of the stack which is Datacenters and Electricity Grid infrastructure building out. And I wouldn't be surprised they are 10x the rate of US.
Well yes but they don't have to worry about environmental or social concerns. They can just pollute wherever they want and jail anyone who complains.
Economically it might be more successful but I'd prefer being a citizen somewhere else.
Economically it might be more successful but I'd prefer being a citizen somewhere else.
Putting the human freedom issues aside, I don't see how Datacenter and Electricity production have much environmental or social concerns especially when they are built in mostly remote places. This isn't some manufacturing facility that leaks toxic substances into river. And China's annual solar installation rate is more than the rest of the world combined.
>Economically it might be more successful
Economics is what gives you power. US needs to wake up and start taking it seriously rather than feeling good about themselves being the best country in the world.
>Economically it might be more successful
Economics is what gives you power. US needs to wake up and start taking it seriously rather than feeling good about themselves being the best country in the world.
> US needs to wake up and start taking it seriously rather than feeling good about themselves being the best country in the world.
If they consider themselves the best country in the world they need to wake up anyway :) :) :)
Honestly, my boss approached me last year reminding me there was this company program about sponsorship for moving to the US (it is how he got there too) and I really had to make an effort not to laugh. Sure they will pay 3x as much as where I live but really, no. I'm very progressive, socialist, pro-LGBT etc. I would hate it there. I won't even fly there to visit at this point.
I would consider China for tourism much more at this point. They have this cyberpunk city I'd love to see. But thanks to Trump flying across the middle east is heavily disrupted so not this year.
If they consider themselves the best country in the world they need to wake up anyway :) :) :)
Honestly, my boss approached me last year reminding me there was this company program about sponsorship for moving to the US (it is how he got there too) and I really had to make an effort not to laugh. Sure they will pay 3x as much as where I live but really, no. I'm very progressive, socialist, pro-LGBT etc. I would hate it there. I won't even fly there to visit at this point.
I would consider China for tourism much more at this point. They have this cyberpunk city I'd love to see. But thanks to Trump flying across the middle east is heavily disrupted so not this year.
Theres this weird false dichotomy people do in energy discussions where they imply that you can either be an authoritarian regime with no property rights and build power plants, or have a rule of law and not build any energy infrastructure at all.
Don’t get it twisted. Their superpower is that they actually just build solar panels, wind turbines, and nuke plants. The answer to should we build, is “yes.”
BTW, look at what is happening today, under this administration, at the US EPA sometime.
Don’t get it twisted. Their superpower is that they actually just build solar panels, wind turbines, and nuke plants. The answer to should we build, is “yes.”
BTW, look at what is happening today, under this administration, at the US EPA sometime.
..china? what
> They can just pollute wherever they want and jail anyone who complains.
Hey don’t worry, the US is catching up: https://www.fox4news.com/news/woman-arrested-facebook-post-c...
I suspect the drug addicted pedophile SV elite will start endorsing other Chinese social ideas so that we “don’t fall behind”.
Hey don’t worry, the US is catching up: https://www.fox4news.com/news/woman-arrested-facebook-post-c...
I suspect the drug addicted pedophile SV elite will start endorsing other Chinese social ideas so that we “don’t fall behind”.
I do think token demand might actually become satiated at some point. Machine to machine scenarios imply the potential for infinite sprawl, but machines don't run for free or forever. There is always a human with interest involved somewhere. You can try to hand wave the human away, but at some point you would be forced to reveal who is paying for the electricity, computers, real estate and internet connectivity.
Sure, but presuming next generation AI is nearly as high utility as a good as a junior engineer, a team of 1-3 seniors could be running projects with 10-30 junior engineers as is. Then consider that much of the throttle on adding more is cost per engineer matching cost of living oriented salary and demotivation effects of giving engineers projects that don't ship and don't further their career path.
I could easily see the equivalent of tens of thousands of engineers being used for companies that had dozens today, making prototypes of every imaginable solution to every RFE in case they are needed by management.
Cost will naturally serve as a limiter but I think most companies will find it hard to compete in their field with anyone who keeps costs similar to today by replacing salaries with energy and hardware capital and continues that cost level by turning all efficiency gains into new build out.
I could easily see the equivalent of tens of thousands of engineers being used for companies that had dozens today, making prototypes of every imaginable solution to every RFE in case they are needed by management.
Cost will naturally serve as a limiter but I think most companies will find it hard to compete in their field with anyone who keeps costs similar to today by replacing salaries with energy and hardware capital and continues that cost level by turning all efficiency gains into new build out.
The Coming ‘Power Wars’ Between Humans and Datacenters
https://sourceryintel.com/reports/humans-vs-datacenters
https://sourceryintel.com/reports/humans-vs-datacenters
Seems the humans love the AI chatbots though. But I guess they figure they run on magic, not actual electricity and water.
context matters. chatbots on sites? companies are wasting money. great way to lose customers. we ripped ours out, i warehouse the data and we had people canceling accounts literally because support agents weren't humans. 99.9% of convos were basically the equivalent to "fuck off clanker let me talk to a real human". for context we have millions of customers in NA, retail company. chat bots are a great way to piss people off is what we learned (i mean most of us called that out at the beginning but the leadership pushed it thru the pipeline anyways). felt very vindicated after we showed them the numbers of how much people hated these things.
latest trend im seeing is the only people touting how great their agent is is people who made their agent. no one is interested in using someone elses agent. very funny social friction we've got growing.
claude/gpt/whatever? yea. sure, i guess but that's a pretty bad faith way of talking about what people love. its just the only mode of taking advantage of this shit, so i guess you could say they like "chatbots" but they are llms so that's exactly how you're supposed to interface with them. so not really meaningful to say "people love chatbots" when it's more likely people like being lazy and having stuff done for them.
im reminded of mark zuckerberg, who thinks that people want to socially network with fake not-real AI profiles. there isn't a soul in the world except mark who thinks this is a cool idea. mark is the goat of having the worst vision ever.
latest trend im seeing is the only people touting how great their agent is is people who made their agent. no one is interested in using someone elses agent. very funny social friction we've got growing.
claude/gpt/whatever? yea. sure, i guess but that's a pretty bad faith way of talking about what people love. its just the only mode of taking advantage of this shit, so i guess you could say they like "chatbots" but they are llms so that's exactly how you're supposed to interface with them. so not really meaningful to say "people love chatbots" when it's more likely people like being lazy and having stuff done for them.
im reminded of mark zuckerberg, who thinks that people want to socially network with fake not-real AI profiles. there isn't a soul in the world except mark who thinks this is a cool idea. mark is the goat of having the worst vision ever.
Generally agree to your points, but, these things vary from person to person, and context to context.
1. chatbots on sites: I personally hate them too. But, instead of having no one to reply to, having even a 50% functioning bot is still good. It doesnt leave you with no answers. I have personally befitted a lot from these especially on tech sites when my questions were related to their documentations or integrations.
2. 100% agree. So many agents are there. I use none of them. But, I do use a lot of these.. all hand-crafted, and they work pretty great.
3. Talikng to chatbots: People have befitted form these, psychologically, as well as un-alived themselves. Similar to knives analogy. Both sets exist. I personally have mostly benefited.
4. Socialize wth fake not-real AI profiles: Again varies from person to person and the situation they are in. They are genuinely fun to chat with once you give them some character. For example, in my case, I once gave them a character(for roleplaying) of a regular no-shit-giving-attitude guy from a hood, and chatted with them in proper hood language (I dont know what the proper word is for this language). IT was real fun. At the same time, these tools are no replacement for actually talking to a human. At least not yet.
1. chatbots on sites: I personally hate them too. But, instead of having no one to reply to, having even a 50% functioning bot is still good. It doesnt leave you with no answers. I have personally befitted a lot from these especially on tech sites when my questions were related to their documentations or integrations.
2. 100% agree. So many agents are there. I use none of them. But, I do use a lot of these.. all hand-crafted, and they work pretty great.
3. Talikng to chatbots: People have befitted form these, psychologically, as well as un-alived themselves. Similar to knives analogy. Both sets exist. I personally have mostly benefited.
4. Socialize wth fake not-real AI profiles: Again varies from person to person and the situation they are in. They are genuinely fun to chat with once you give them some character. For example, in my case, I once gave them a character(for roleplaying) of a regular no-shit-giving-attitude guy from a hood, and chatted with them in proper hood language (I dont know what the proper word is for this language). IT was real fun. At the same time, these tools are no replacement for actually talking to a human. At least not yet.
Some humans do.
Just as well SpaceX can put them in space instead. Maybe.
inb4 "why would you want to hinder progress" types.
seriously its not hard calculus to understand that we were barely scaling energy needs for people, if you're in the US you got a hostile asf admin thats calling everything woke and cancelling the possibilities that we could scale this in a way thats good for the damn planet. so to have datacenters come in and feel entitled to the same utilities that deprioritizes actual living breathing people .... like there is no "progress" argument to be made here. that is the opposite of progress. that is a damn regression.
if datacenters want energy they should unilaterally front the cost of the energy infrastructure to power themselves. since these things are being bankrolled from billionaire entities and idiots, they should have no problem scheduling the mar a lago dinners with the million dollar checks to get this mob of an admin to allow them to do it using "woke" energy infra. we can still live without AI, so you're not a utility yet stop pretending you are one.
same shit as the bitcoin nonsense from 14-17, all the dorkus maximus types claimed that bitcoin mining would force energy to scale and everyone would collectively benefit from greener energy sources. total fever dreams touted by people chasing greed. all of that is a pipe dream, not happening with the powers that be in control and everyone knows it.
seriously its not hard calculus to understand that we were barely scaling energy needs for people, if you're in the US you got a hostile asf admin thats calling everything woke and cancelling the possibilities that we could scale this in a way thats good for the damn planet. so to have datacenters come in and feel entitled to the same utilities that deprioritizes actual living breathing people .... like there is no "progress" argument to be made here. that is the opposite of progress. that is a damn regression.
if datacenters want energy they should unilaterally front the cost of the energy infrastructure to power themselves. since these things are being bankrolled from billionaire entities and idiots, they should have no problem scheduling the mar a lago dinners with the million dollar checks to get this mob of an admin to allow them to do it using "woke" energy infra. we can still live without AI, so you're not a utility yet stop pretending you are one.
same shit as the bitcoin nonsense from 14-17, all the dorkus maximus types claimed that bitcoin mining would force energy to scale and everyone would collectively benefit from greener energy sources. total fever dreams touted by people chasing greed. all of that is a pipe dream, not happening with the powers that be in control and everyone knows it.
casey2(2)
Nasrudith(3)
> It’s not only new projects putting strain on the grid though. The report found that an estimated 13 percent of US cloud consumption, totaling more than 3 gigawatts, comes from so-called "zombie" workloads—abandoned test environments and unused applications that continue to draw power without doing any useful work.
Containerized sandbox environments for AI can be incredibly wasteful. If those sandboxes are kept available so the user gets sub-second access that is a continual user of RAM, and thus overall computing resources. We built the first version of https://www.aha.io/builder/overview using a typical containerized environment - just like you see with products like Replit - but were appalled at the inefficiency and waste. We rebuilt it from the ground-up to use shared architecture instead with Javascript-level isolation, and almost zero waste. Using shared computing instead of containers means instant startup time, and (almost) zero resource consumption when not active. You still consume disk to store the artifacts, but there is no ongoing RAM or CPU.
I think a reckoning is coming for container-based AI systems too. We are seeing tokens trend towards reflecting the actual cost, and I think the same will be true of containerized runtime environments too.