• frank@sopuli.xyz
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    22 hours ago

    I was under the impression that the majority of them are not closed loop, any idea if there’s data (no pun intended) anywhere? A quick search found me not much

    • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      It sounds like the waste head they create is getting harder and harder to cool with heat exchangers. So evaporative cooling is more efficient (power wise, not water usage wise) and they basically spray water on the cooling towers and it blows away in the wind as vapor.

      • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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        18 hours ago

        So they could not use the water too, but they are saving money and simply prefer stealing the water they don’t even need

        • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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          16 hours ago

          Maybe, thermodynamics are a jerk, and it may be impossible to get enough cooling in some environments.

          It could also use more power to compress refrigerants to cool it other ways. Then we’re trading carbon in the atmosphere for water waste.

          Sure we could use solar, hydro, or nuclear, but we could also just stop the fucking slop and waste less of everything.

          But without political revolt none of that will happen.

          • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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            12 hours ago

            Or we can start running 9B models on a solar powered PI. Why tf we need data centers? AI won’t get much better than this with it’s current architecture.