Your Next AI Query May Travel Where the Power Is
To cope with power-hungry data centers, Nvidia and partners plan a pilot that builds small data centers next to utility substations and operates them as one coordinated fleet, shifting computation based on power availability. They plan about 25 micro data centers, each 5 to 20 megawatts, across five U.S. utilities later this year. The approach taps spare capacity at substations and lets developers secure scarce grid power in small chunks while building energy flexibility into AI compute.
Key Takeaways
- The rise of electricity-guzzling data centers has forced the artificial intelligence industry to get creative about finding power.
One of the latest ideas: Build micro data centers next to utility substations and operate them in concert, shifting the computation around based on power availability.
- The project aims to demonstrate a new way for data centers to be more flexible and accommodating of electricity availability.
It's also a way for data center developers to quickly secure power from the grid-an increasingly precious commodity, even in small chunks.
- In the United States, where half of all new data centers are being built , data centers could consume 9 to 17 percent of electricity generation by 2030 .
That's more than double the current use, according to EPRI's estimates.
- Some are offering to pay for the cost of new transmission lines and other grid infrastructure.
And a few are even investing in startup companies that are developing fusion and next-generation nuclear fission reactors, in the hope of meeting power needs a decade from now.
- If AI data centers can find a way to reduce or shift power consumption during these periods of peak demand, the extraordinary measure of building on-site power generation may not always be necessary.
The rise of electricity-guzzling data centers has forced the artificial intelligence industry to get creative about finding power. One of the latest ideas: Build micro data centers next to utility substations and operate them in concert, shifting the computation around based on power availability. That's the approach Nvidia and its collaborators are taking in a new pilot project they plan to build later this year.
They'll construct about 25 of these small data centers, each ranging from 5 to 20 megawatts, across five utilities in the United States. If one substation is overloaded with power demand, or if there's an outage, the compute will be shifted to a different data center near a substation that has spare capacity. To develop the fleet, Nvidia is partnering with data center builder InfraPartners , real estate service provider Prologis , and the nonprofit EPRI (formerly known as the Electric Power Research Institute).
The project aims to demonstrate a new way for data centers to be more flexible and accommodating of electricity availability. It's also a way for data center developers to quickly secure power from the grid-an increasingly precious commodity, even in small chunks. "We started looking at how much [unused] power is available at individual substations, and what we found was that on average, like 5 MW is nominally available...max 20 MW," says Ben Sooter , director of Agentic AI Initiatives and Distributed AI Architecture at EPRI.
For more details please read the original article at IEEE Spectrum AI.
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