The project is set to become one of the most powerful AI computing clusters, reaching a capacity of 1 gigawatt.
  • Libra00@lemmy.mlEnglish
    9·
    22 hours ago

    Hm, yeah, let’s build a giant datacenter that needs a ton of power and water in the desert, that’s a great plan.

      • Libra00@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        I dunno the UAE’s energy situation, maybe they installed a shitload of solar in the desert and are practically giving away electricity, but it still seems stupid to build anything water-intensive in a desert. I lived in Albuquerque, NM in the late 90s/early 2000s and they had a big Intel fabrication plant out there, in the desert, using so much goddamned water that they were depleting the water table. But they don’t care as long as it’s cheap today and probably cheap tomorrow. Expensive eventually because of resource depletion is a problem for future quarterly reports.

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    14·
    1 day ago

    Remember, this is all about OpenAI convincing investors to shovel more money into their furnace.

    They are not profitable. They have no realistic path to being profitable. Their only hope for survival is to South Seas Company their through round after round of investor funding. And to do that they have to create the appearance of near unlimited demand for their services, and therefore for additional capacity to run those services.

    The writing is on the wall. Microsoft and Amazon, two of the biggest players in the compute space, both of which also run their own AI projects, have both massively scaled back their plans for future compute expansion. If anyone should be building out like crazy it’s them. If anyone has a clear idea of what the actual demand is, it’s them. If Amazon and Microsoft are out, this thing is fucked.

    OpenAI is fucked. Sam Altman knows it. But if he can keep the illusion going, the money train doesn’t have to stop. Yet.

    • mienshao@lemm.eeEnglish
      72·
      2 days ago

      My first thought as well. As a gay man, you couldn’t pay me to step foot in that country.

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.worldEnglish
      513·
      2 days ago

      UAE ≠ Saudi Arabia

      This is just plain anti-Arab racism. They’re not all alike. I deeply dislike the Emirati government but you’re not helping.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.worldEnglish
          36·
          1 day ago

          So does the Caribbean and much of the developing world, but like UAE these old laws are still on the books but not enforced. Can you show me an example of death penalty being carried out in UAE for homosexuality in the last few decades?

          • Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            52·
            1 day ago

            Where in the Caribbean are LGBTQ people killed? Because I’m in the Caribbean and I have seen no such thing. They are not very liked in every community but that is on a case by case basis and other than being socially ostracized I don’t think there’s high levels of violence against them. Maybe you’re referring very specifically to well known hellhole Haiti?

            • SulaymanF@lemmy.worldEnglish
              23·
              22 hours ago

              Haiti has a lot of lynchings of suspected gay people. Grenada and Barbados and Dominica still jail people for gay sex with long prison terms.

  • FlexibleToast@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    2 days ago

    On one hand, there is a lot of potential to use solar power. On the other hand, cooling that isn’t going to be a bitch.

  • Gointhefridge@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    It’s looking like we’re doing a China again.

    Companies are dumping tons of money and putting their vital resources in the UAE cause it’s cheaper and/or they can get away with murder.

    This will not end well and we will end up creating a new super power nation cause capitalists hate the poor so much here that they will risk the nations standing to make an extra buck.