Fordel StudiosHuge growth in AI usage could cause electricity blackouts in US from next year
What Happened
Electricity regulators are concerned that the huge growth in AI usage could lead to power blackouts in the US and Canada as early as next year. The prediction was published shortly after the public release of iOS 18.2 brought many more Apple Intelligence features online. Artificial intelligence s
Fordel's Take
this is the part that keeps infrastructure guys up at night. the energy demands for training and running massive foundation models are insane, and the grid simply can't keep up with the growth. the growth rate isn't linear; it’s exponential, and that puts extreme strain on power delivery, especially in areas already struggling with aging infrastructure.
we're not just talking about running a few inference calls; we're talking about running petascale operations that chew through megawatts. if we don't massively upgrade the power grid, we're looking at regional brownouts, not theoretical blackout scenarios.
it’s a physical limitation, not a software fix. the physics of electricity are the bottleneck, and that's where the real panic should be.
What To Do
advocate for grid modernization and increased energy capacity for data centers
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