'Big hammer': AI power needs rapidly take a toll on electric grids powering Americans’ homes



The growing power requirements of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are now already having a negative impact on millions of Americans, according to a new report.

Bloomberg reported Friday that in many major metropolitan centers, AI data centers are gobbling up so much electricity that the quality of power residents are receiving is starting to go down. As AI continues to proliferate, its footprint on local power grids could present a risk to older home appliances and fragile municipal infrastructure.

According to Bloomberg, many of the distorted power readings it analyzed based on hundreds of thousands of home sensors are within 50 miles of an AI data center. This includes homes in both urban and rural areas, and manifests in the form of "bad harmonics." The publication reported that those bad harmonics — in which waves of electricity traveling into a home are excessively distorted — "can force home electronics to run hot, or even cause the motors in refrigerators and air conditioners to rattle" and cause "billions of dollars in damage."

READ MORE: AI is an existential threat — just not the way you think

Aside from questions over whether residents will have enough electricity to run their homes, the growing electricity demand for AI data centers has also led to concerns over whether these power distortions could pose a physical danger to residents if a power surge destroys an appliance or causes an electrical fire. Hasala Dharmawardena, who is a senior engineer of power systems modeling studies at the North American Reliability Corp., warned that decision-makers "need to understand those risks," as AI is "such a big hammer" on local electrical grids.

"The data center is a very large load," he said. "Take your house and increase that by 10,000. That is the difference between your house and a data center."

Thanks to the growing AI industry, U.S. demand for electricity is expected to jump by 16% by 2030, according to a study conducted by Washington D.C. consulting firm Grid Strategies. That's more than triple the 2023 estimate in projected demand. And without significant investments in bolstering electric grid infrastructure, the threat posed by bad harmonics is likely to worsen. Metro areas with the most AI data centers include the Northern Virginia/D.C. metro area, the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia and Chicagoland.

"Harmonics are a pretty good canary in the coal mine for early signs of stress and problems," said Whisker Labs CEO Bob Marshall, whose company tracks power quality in real time.

READ MORE: AI firm sued over chatbot that suggested it was OK for child to kill parents

Click here to read Bloomberg's report in full (subscription required).



from Alternet.org https://ift.tt/N2YIxds
via sinceretalk

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PA GOP Senate candidate who says he 'started with nothing' actually grew up in a mansion

Image
David McCormick, who is Pennsylvania's presumptive Republican U.S. Senate nominee, has often suggested he grew up poor in a rural community. But a new report finds that his upbringing was far more affluent than he's suggested. The New York Times reported Friday that McCormick — a former hedge fund executive who lived in Connecticut as recently as 2022 — has been cagey with voters about his childhood. McCormick has tweeted that he was "raised in Bloomsburg working on his family's farm," said on a 2022 podcast that he " started with nothing " and told CBS News that same year that he " didn't have anything " growing up as the son of two schoolteachers. But according to the Times , McCormick's father, Dr. James H. McCormick , was appointed president of what is now Bloomsburg University by Gov. Milton Schapp (D) in 1973. He moved his family into Buckalew Place — the official mansion for presidents of the school that currently spans 5...
Read more

How misinformation could shape the Israel-Hamas war

Image
I wanted to interview Nicholas Grossman regarding the role of misinformation in the war between Israel and Hamas. In particular, I hoped to ask the professor of international relations at the University of Illinois, and senior editor of Arc Digital , about misinformation that arose from American reporting on an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. You know what? I ended up repeating a bit of misinformation! I asked him to lay out the facts about a blast that “killed hundreds, including kids,” and he said nuh-uh (not his words). In fact, Professor Grossman said, “there never were hundreds killed by an explosion at that hospital. Media reported that the hospital was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike killing 500, but that was based on something a Hamas-controlled agency said and was never supported by evidence.” Professor Grossman went on to say “what apparently did happen is something hit a nearby parking lot and caused a smaller explosion, most likely a rocket fired from Gaza towards I...
Read more

Trump was hit by glass fragments — not a bullet: report

Image
Law enforcement officials have claimed to two different sources that former President Donald Trump was not grazed by a bullet but rather by glass shards. The officials in question told both Newsmax's Alex Salvi and Axios' Juliegrace Brufke that Trump was hit by glass shards that may have erupted from the shattering of a teleprompter that was hit by gunfire. Earlier on Saturday, law enforcement sources confirmed that the person suspected of firing a weapon at a Pennsylvania Trump rally had been killed, as had at least one person in the crowd. Videos showed Trump grabbing his neck after apparent gunshots had been fired before Secret Service agents pulled him to the ground. They then took him away in an armored vehicle to a hospital where he was treated for injuries. The identity of the shooting suspect has not yet been released. from Alternet.org https://ift.tt/ILgqr53 via sinceretalk
Read more