May 24, 2024
Data Centers + AI Growth Requires More Energy, is Nuclear an Option?
AZ TRT S05 EP20 (235) 5-19-2024
What We Learned This Week:
- Data Centers use lots of Energy with demand growing 15% per year
- AI Models are large software files, and this leads to more data
- Alternative Ideas like Clean Energy, smaller Data Centers, & Cooling
- Nuclear SMR (Small Modular Reactor) may be the Future of Energy
- Stock Investment Ideas - How can you Make Money $ off the increase of Data Centers?
Notes:
Seg. 1
Clips about AI from:
Software Delivered AI w/ Brian Stevens of Neural Magic
AZ TRT S05 EP08 (223) 2-25-2024
What We Learned This Week
- Neural Magic Deepsparse software helps B2B Clients incorporate AI into their tech stack
- Large Language Learning Models of AI can be costly & require massive computing power
- Their clients now control their AI Model
- Opensource AI Foundation Models for training
- AI uses a Recommendation Model
Guest: Brian Stevens
Chief Executive Officer of Neural Magic
Brian Stevens is chief executive officer of Neural Magic. A tech veteran with more than 30 years of experience, Brian has a rich history of building/advising high-impact companies and driving disruptions that transform the industry.
NEURAL MAGIC
About: Neural Magic is an AI company, born out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on a mission to help customers innovate with machine learning, without added complexity or cost. While pursuing research at MIT, founders Nir Shavit and Alexander Matveev launched Neural Magic, a software-delivered AI solution, to address their frustration with the constraints of GPUs and existing hardware.
Full Show: Here
Clips about Data Centers and Energy from:
The New Modular Data Center by Redivider w/ Tom Frazier
BRT S04 EP31 (194) 8-6-2023
What We Learned This Week
· Redivider Data centers are smaller modular size like a shipping container vs a standard data center which could be a huge warehouse
The new data centers are mobile, eco friendly, carbon neutral, plus allow for both scale & cost savings
·Technology will be used to help the growth of the smart city or cloud and edge computing services
· The growing use of AI programs like ChatGPT impacts the water supply as the needed cooling for data centers is massive, and not sustainable long term
·Re-divider: Focus on The Three P’s, People, Planet, Profit
Guest: Tom Frazier - Co-Founder & CEO
Tom Frazier, the co-founder and CEO of Redivider, boasts an impressive 25-year career, driving transformational and disruptive initiatives in future tech, B2B, and public sectors. Committed to prioritizing people, planet, and profits, Tom is devoted to spearheading innovation in the digital economy.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomfrazier/
Meet Redivider and Tom Frazier
https://www.redivider.co/products/data-centers
Leading with People, Planet and Profits , Tom Frazier and Eric Appelblom are flipping the traditional enterprise data center on its head with hydrogen powered data centers—reducing carbon foot print and increasing jobs. The companies advisory team is a shows who in environmental and ESG.
Full Show: HERE
Seg. 2
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand.html
AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand
On average, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. In that difference lies a coming sea change in how the US, Europe, and the world at large will consume power — and how much that will cost.
For years, data centers displayed a remarkably stable appetite for power, even as their workloads mounted. Now, as the pace of efficiency gains in electricity use slows and the AI revolution gathers steam, Goldman Sachs Research estimates that data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.
At present, data centers worldwide consume 1-2% of overall power, but this percentage will likely rise to 3-4% by the end of the decade. In the US and Europe, this increased demand will help drive the kind of electricity growth that hasn’t been seen in a generation. Along the way, the carbon dioxide emissions of data centers may more than double between 2022 and 2030.
Goldman Sachs research on AI and power needs
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand.html
https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-data-centers-power-built-in-nuclear-reactors
AI DATA CENTERS NEED SO MUCH POWER THEY MAY NEED BUILT-IN NUCLEAR REACTORS
"DATA CENTRES ARE POWER HUNGRY THINGS, BUT WITH AI WE'RE MOVING INTO A NEW LEVEL OF POWER REQUIREMENTS."
Nuclear Option
It's no secret that keeping an AI data center running requires an immense amount of power.
To meet those skyrocketing energy demands, experts are now looking for alternative sources, the BBC reports — including small nuclear reactors that could power individual data centers.
"Our industry has to find another source of power," Digital Realty CTO Chris Sharp told the broadcaster.
Small and Modular
For years, scientists have been developing small modular reactors (SMR), which are scaled-down power plants that can provide power in situ and thereby dramatically reduce companies' dependence on the grid.
Despite an entire burgeoning industry dedicated to their realization, there still aren't any commercial ones in operation anywhere in the world, as the BBC notes.
It's an intriguing idea that has inspired some of the biggest players in the AI field to invest in the idea. Job listings last year suggested Microsoft was looking to roll out its own plan for SMRs, with the goal of eventually using them to power its AI data centers.
Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has invested in a nuclear startup called Oklo, which is working on self-regulating SMRs. (Altman has also suggested that AI is so power hungry that it'll require a breakthrough energy source.)
"Data centres are power hungry things, but with AI we're moving into a new level of power requirements," director at the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London Michael Bluck told the BBC.
But it'll likely be a while before companies start producing SMRs at scale to meet those requirements.
"There are about 50 SMR designs out there," Bluck added. "The challenge is to build them in repeatable units, factory style, standardizing production lines."
One big hurdle to still overcome is regulation. After all, nuclear energy comes with some obvious risks. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been "engaged in varying degrees of pre-application activities with several SMR designers over the past several years," per its official website.
In 2020, the commission approved the first SMR design, developed by an Oregon-based startup called NuScale Power.
However, despite clear momentum behind the idea, it's unclear if SMRs will end up being the answer to our rapidly rising energy needs. Companies are desperately looking for ways to scale up operations now — and not years from now.
More on SMRs: Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors. SMRs, which can produce a large amount of low-carbon electricity, are:
- Small – physically a fraction of the size of a conventional nuclear power reactor.
- Modular – making it possible for systems and components to be factory-assembled and transported as a unit to a location for installation.
- Reactors – harnessing nuclear fission to generate heat to produce energy.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/nuclear-power-oklo-sam-altman-ai-energy-rcna139094
The AI industry is pushing a nuclear power revival — partly to fuel itself
A nuclear startup backed by OpenAI chief Sam Altman wants to power data centers and homes alike. It’s racing against surging demand while working to satisfy regulators.
Excerpt:
Oklo is one of the nuclear startups backed by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who has described AI and cheap, green energy as mutually reinforcing essentials to achieving a future marked by “abundance.”
“Fundamentally today in the world, the two limiting commodities you see everywhere are intelligence, which we’re trying to work on with AI, and energy,” he told CNBC in 2021 after investing $375 million in Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion startup that Altman chairs. Microsoft last year agreed to buy power from Helion starting in 2028. Oklo, which Altman also chairs, is focused on the opposite reaction, fission, which generates energy by splitting an atom; fusion does so by merging atomic nuclei.
Representatives for Altman, through his special acquisition company AltC, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In rural southeastern Idaho, Oklo is working to build a small-scale nuclear powerhouse that could fuel data centers like the ones OpenAI and its competitors need. But the company also wants to supply mixed-use communities and industrial facilities, and is already contracted to build two commercial plants in southern Ohio.
Stocks to Review:
https://www.techopedia.com/investing/best-data-center-stocks
Best Data Center Stocks to Buy in 2024
Here’s a quick overview of the best data center stocks available today:
- Equinix: The US-based, large-cap data center real estate investment trust (REIT) rents out server space and provides fast direct internet connections. It operates 260 data centers in 33 countries on five continents.
- Prologis: The REIT specializes in leasing to logistics companies. It plans to spend more than $25 billion to branch out into building and leasing data centers. It owns 5,613 buildings covering 1.2 billion square feet.
- Vertiv: The US company provides power, cooling and IT infrastructure and services to data centers. It sells equipment such as embedded computing systems, static transfer switches and data center racks.
- Eaton Corporation: The Irish company provides power management, electrical components and systems to data centers, as well as to utility, machine building, aerospace, and mobility markets.
- Digital Realty Trust: The real estate investment trust (REIT) has a big footprint globally, with 300 data centers across 25 countries. It offers data center and colocation services.
- Oracle Corporation: Its products and platforms are helping drive demand for more data center space. In addition, Oracle said it plans to spend around $10 billion in 2025 on data center expansion.
- Iron Mountain: The US large-cap REIT specializes in leasing out data center space and secure storage. It owns 21 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. It serves 225,000 customers.
- Arista Networks: It delivers cloud-to-cloud networking for large data centers, campus and routing environments, and has more than 8,000 cloud customers worldwide. Its revenue has grown for 15 quarters.
- American Tower: The REIT, known for owning and leasing cell and communications towers, has expanded into data centers and cloud computing over the past four years after buying CoreSite.
- Snowflake: The company is a cloud-based data platform that uses the infrastructure of large cloud providers to run its services. Its platform allows companies to securely share data among users.
Cramer looks at why enterprise and data tech companies are winning: ‘Follow the money’
· As consumers tighten spending, CNBC’s Jim Cramer told investors to focus on companies that deal with data and have primarily enterprise customers.
· “Right now, you have to follow the money, and it’s currently flowing to businesses that cater to other businesses and the ones that need to interrogate the data,” he said. “The rest? Not much there.”
· Cramer said the biggest names in tech are part of this data surge, including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Apple.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/05/20/forget-nvidia-jim-cramer-says-this-company-could-b/
Forget Nvidia: Jim Cramer Says This Company Could Be About to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Centers
By Adam Spatacco – May 20, 2024 at 8:21AM
KEY POINTS
· Data center services are dominated by tech giants including Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Vertiv.
· Energy companies are a tangential beneficiary of the rising demand in data centers.
· Constellation Energy represents a compelling opportunity, given the company's capabilities with nuclear power and its relationships with big tech.
Stock – CEG / Constellation Energy – deals in natural Gas and Nuclear Energy
Utility Stocks of note for Energy:
EQT Corp., Southern Co, PNW Pinnacle West Cap, WEC Energy, Bloom Energy
Clean Energy Stock: First Solar
Tech Stocks of note for AI & Data Centers:
Google, Amazon, Nvida, Oracle, Microsoft
Tech
Topic:
https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Tech-Startup-VC-Cybersecurity-Energy-Science
Best of Tech:
https://brt-show.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=best+of+tech
Investing Topic:
https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Investing-Stocks-Bonds-Retirement
‘Best Of’ Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+of+BRT
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