AI-driven datacenter energy needs are causing a shortage of gas turbines to power generators, with some operators reportedly turning to old aircraft engines instead.
The rising demand for compute to feed the current AI development craze has seen datacenters adding capacity and new ones popping up, with a knock-on effect on the electricity supply.
As The Register reported recently, US bit barns are set to consume 22 percent more grid power by the end of 2025 than the same time last year. But in many regions the energy grid can’t keep pace with connection requests, leading operators to turn to on-site generation of their own power, as advised by Schneider Electric last year.
But one thing leads to another, and now it seems that gas turbine manufacturers can’t meet the sudden rise in demand, particularly in the US where there are more datacenters than anywhere else, leading to a shortage in some markets.
That should be nice and quiet.
I’ve heard of Japan and Germany but where is GE?
What is the effect? Why bring it up if you don’t want to discuss it?
What a poorly written article. I couldn’t follow the author’s incomplete thoughts for much of it.
As I understand it, GE Vernova is a joint venture with a French firm. However, this is the sort of research that’s easy enough to do on one’s own. I’m a newspaper editor, not a physicist, so asking me is pointless. I share things I find interesting, but beyond taking derivatives and integrals, I’m not a good source for that sort of data analysis.
I would point out that if your irritation is that everything you want wasn’t handed to you on a platter, sharing this was not intended to be a treatise. If you’re curious, look into it further. Expecting a single news story to answer all your questions is unreasonable. Often, news intentionally simplifies matters because the audience isn’t looking for methodology or p-values.
No my irritation was with how it was written. Why break the rhythm when listing 3 things? Why mention Vietnam and the Philippines and then immediately move on? The writing was very disjointed.
Some of the embedded links were useful and interesting, others just went to random pages that had nothing to do with what was discussed.
I was not the assigning editor. I’m merely sharing links I find interesting. And structurally, this didn’t throw any red flags.
Thanks for sharing. It was interesting to learn something new.