Texas warns Big Tech: new data centres only if you also build power plants
Artificial intelligence is too energy-intensive and puts the energy needed by cities at risk. Hence the proposal to create new plants
2' min read
2' min read
That data centres dedicated to artificial intelligence are particularly energy-intensive we have written several times. In some cases, the consumption of these facilities exceeds entire cities. And so comes a solution from Texas that is bound to cause discussion: you want to build an AI data centre? Then build the power plant that supports it too.
Thomas Gleeson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, said that allowing new data centres to be built near existing power plants threatens the adequacy of resources on the grid if the data centres buy all the power from the power plants. And after all, it has already happened in Texas that cities struggle to keep the lights on as data centres and the growth of the economy put a strain on supplies.
"We can't afford to lose any of our resources from the system at this point, especially considering the load growth projections," Gleeson said in an interview at the Gulf Coast Power Association conference in Austin, where artificial intelligence was the focus of discussion.
Amazon Web Services, for example, agreed in March to spend $650 million on a data centre campus in Pennsylvania connected to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. And Constellation Energy plans to reopen its Three Mile Island nuclear power plant by selling all of the facility's output to Microsoft.
Gleeson said his agency is informing data centre developers that they will have to provide some of their own power if they want to connect to the Texas power grid within 12 to 15 months. Many of the companies involved, he said, have among the largest budgets in the world and can afford to finance the construction of new power plants.
