Just three years ago, Blake Scholl, CEO of aviation company Boom Supersonic, had a linear business plan: He would first build the supersonic plane of the future and, much later, retrofit its engines to generate power. However, a phone call changed the order of factors and revealed the desperation of the technology industry. On the other end of the line was Sam Altman. The OpenAI CEO’s message was a direct plea: “Please, please, please get us something.”
Altman wasn’t looking for plane tickets; I was looking for electrical power. This anecdote, reported to the Financial Timessummarizes the state of emergency in the sector: artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed, but it has hit the wall of physical infrastructure. While the AI evolves in monthspermits to connect to the electrical grid can take up to ten years in some regions. Faced with this paralysis, the industry has opted for “Plan B” which consists of bypassing the grid and manufacturing its own energy on site.
The tall price of urgency. This strategic shift has profound consequences. The first is economic, the “delay” is expensive. According to BNP Paribas analystspower from a gas plant built for Meta in Ohio costs about $175 per megawatt hour, nearly double the average cost for an industrial customer.
The second is environmental. Mark Dyson, from Rocky Mountain Institutewarns that the emissions of these plants are much worse than those of the general network, which combines efficient gas with renewables. Despite this, the urgency is such that the authorities are giving in. In Virginia, the world’s data center heartland, it is considering relaxing emissions rules to allow generators to run more frequently. Even polluting plants that were in retirement, like the Fisk plant in Chicagohave canceled their closure to feed the demand for AI.
From the sky to the data center. The most surprising solution comes from aeronautical engineering through aeroderivative turbines. The ProEnergy Company are buying motor cores CF6-80C2 of the iconic Boeing 747 to rebuild them as ground power units. A single one of these turbines generates 48 megawatts, enough for a city of 40,000 homes.
It is not an isolated case. GE Vernova already supplies this technology for the gigantic Stargate (OpenAI/Microsoft) data center in Texas. Blake Scholl himself confirmed that it will sell Crusoe turbines “practically identical” to those of his supersonic planes to finance his aeronautical project.
The return of diesel. Beyond aviation turbines, the sector is rescuing the most reviled fuel: diesel. The manufacturer Cummins has already sold 39 gigawatts of energy to data centers, doubling their capacity this year. What was once emergency equipment for power outages is now in demand as a primary energy source.
The situation has escalated to the US Government. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, suggested on Fox News an almost war economy measure: requisition the backup generators from data centers or large stores like Walmart to turn them over to the network when the general system falters.
The ignored alternative: Is smoke necessary? Not everyone agrees that the return to the fossil is inevitable. A study by researchers at Stripe, Paces and Scale Microgrids maintains that the future is in “off-grid” solar microgrids. According to their calculations, a system with 44% solar energy is already as cheap as gas, and one with 90% renewables would surpass nuclear projects in profitability. The advantage is speed since these solar farms can be built in less than two years in desert areas from Texas or Arizona.
Giants like Google have taken note, buying the electric company Intersect Power for 4.75 billion dollars to protect its clean supply and not depend on the network. However, the majority industry prefers diesel and known gas due to a matter of technical inertia, due to the prosaic fear that the cloud will go out if the sun does not shine.
AI goes physical. The industry finds itself in a technical paradox. To power the most advanced software on the planet, big technology companies are resurrecting combustion engines and burning fossil fuels on a massive scale. Although these “bridge turbines” allow AI to continue growing today, experts cited by the Financial Times They warn that this fever could cool as the tech giants reduce their capital spending.
For now, the cloud has had to come down to earth. The future of artificial intelligence, ironically, depends not only on brilliant code, but on who controls the underground and who manages to turn on enough “plugs” so that the greatest technological revolution of our era is not left in the dark.
Image | freepik and Harpagornis
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