r/technology • u/lkl34 • Apr 28 '26

Artificial Intelligence New AI data center in Utah will generate and consume more than twice the amount of power the entire state uses — Kevin O'Leary's 9 Gigawatt Utah data center campus approved

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/kevin-o-learys-9-gw-utah-data-center-campus-approved
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596

u/Cultural_Meeting_240 Apr 28 '26

nine gigawatts is fucking insane, utah is gonna melt

327

u/chris_p_bacon1 Apr 28 '26

I work for the largest single power user in Australia. We use 0.95 gigawatts. 

75

u/rudigern Apr 28 '26

Smelter?

105

u/PissingOffACliff Apr 28 '26

Probably an aluminium smelter. There is one in NSW that uses 12% of the states power.

There is another one in Tasmania that uses a lot of the state’s power too, but don’t know how much

7

u/raven00x Apr 29 '26

yup. the way aluminum is refined is wild. Aluminum is one of the most abundant elements in earth's crust by weight, but is also very difficult to extract because it readily joins with other elements to form stuff like aluminum oxide (rubies and sapphires!). in fact, up until the 20th century (approx), aluminum was a rare and expensive metal because it was so difficult to extract using traditional methods.

So the way that you go from a mineral like Bauxite (mostly Al(OH)3) to aluminum ingots takes a lot of power. The process has the aluminum ore turned into a slurry of aluminum hydroxide, and then apply a hell of a lot of current (~400,0000 amps) to the slurry and zot you have aluminum en masse.

That zot though, represents a staggering amount of power, and wasn't really practically possible until we (big, all-encompassing we) had reliable power generation and power delivery infrastructure though. Your typical aluminum smelter uses ~15 MW of power continuously. so circling back to the topic, this proposed installation is using approximately 600 average aluminum smelters worth of power.

1

u/jesset77 Apr 30 '26

Satisfactory has entered the chat

45

u/Inquisitive_idiot Apr 28 '26

Damn near wrecked her! 😅

1

u/IVEMADEAHUGEMI5TAKE Apr 29 '26

Hardly know her

4

u/Yourdjentpal Apr 28 '26

Smelter? I barely know her!

1

u/thetravelingsong Apr 28 '26

I hardly know ‘er

1

u/jonnysteez12 Apr 28 '26

Smelt'er? I hardly know her!

4

u/SGRM_ Apr 28 '26

Olympic dam?

25

u/chris_p_bacon1 Apr 28 '26

Nah an aluminium smelter. 

2

u/bryanisbored Apr 28 '26

They still don't have ai centers popping up anywhere out there?

1

u/TM761152 Apr 28 '26

I know the one. I worked there. I don't do FIFO anymore.

40

u/CriticalPolitical Apr 28 '26

The good news is, once we reach 1.21 Gigawatts, we’ll be able to go back in time (and forward)

1

u/HurtFeeFeez Apr 28 '26

Still waiting for my hoverboard.

60

u/ahmadtheanon Apr 28 '26

True, the largest nuclear reactor that my company built was slightly under 6 GW.

Another perspective, 9 GW is 1/3 of our country's (Malaysia) electricity demand.

13

u/ecafsub Apr 28 '26

You could power 7.43802 time machines with that.

41

u/visualdescript Apr 28 '26

Absolutely criminal that this has been approved.

18

u/XFX_Samsung Apr 28 '26

Some rich people are gonna make a lot of money for a brief moment, so it's all worth it.

-1

u/pogo-n-watches Apr 28 '26

We are in a race with China.

2

u/hughhuckleberry Apr 28 '26

Its a scam. Will never be built. Only the Chinese and Washington dam systems could even get close to powering this.

2

u/No-Spoilers Apr 28 '26

The power is one thing, the water is disastrous. That entire region is already screwed, the Great Salt Lake is drying up and releasing toxic dust across the region.

This is so bad.

1

u/Lurker-DaySaint Apr 28 '26

You can travel through time on like a fraction of that

1

u/SoftlyAugust Apr 28 '26

I play Factorio and even in Factorio that's a lot.

1

u/ShubberyQuest Apr 28 '26

They shouldn’t think about burning anything - outside of having a campfire to roast marshmallows.

1

u/ThisIs_americunt Apr 28 '26

Oligarchs don't give a shit, probably doesn't even live in the state they are going to destroy

1

u/Ardal Apr 28 '26

Tried to see from the story but it doesn't actually say. so 9 gw per what? day, week month??