Three Mile Island will reignite reactors to power Microsoft's artificial intelligence

The surge in energy consumption due to the development of artificial intelligence even restarts the Three Mile Island power plant, famous for the worst nuclear disaster in the United States.

In the last few weeks OpenAI sought investments to support the development of its artificial intelligence, opening a channel also with the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates for a deal from 100 billion dollars.The company, which has enjoyed success for years an iron alliance with Microsoft, is in continuous need of funds also because it has not yet managed to define a sustainable business model:in front of his own 180 million users, in fact, it seems anyway set to lose around five billion dollars this year alone.

However, there is a sector that seems to have understood how to monetize these technologies, and that is it energetic.Chatbot like ChatGPT, in fact, they work thanks to very powerful data centers, of the data processing centers whose energy consumption is increasingly high and worrying.But it's not just AI that's to blame: according to the Guardian, In fact, between 2020 and 2022 (i.e. even before the advent of ChatGPT) the official data reported by Big Tech on data center energy consumption were rather optimistic.Too.In reality, according to some reconstructions, real consumption would be about seven times higher than declared (662% more).

And then AI exploded, which certainly didn't help.Indeed, these systems are nullifying many of the efforts and investments made in recent years, when the main technology companies invested to become more sustainable. Good old days.The Washington Post ha told the return of coal plants, some of which were destined to be closed, which are instead doing business to provide electricity to data centers.It happens especially in Virginia And West Virginia, states that have attracted investment in the sector and where a “data center valley”, where blackouts are increasing and the electricity grid risks collapse due to increased demand.

Also nuclear energy is experiencing a new youth, and let's not talk about the new generation nuclear power which is also being discussed in Italy:in Pennsylvania the nuclear power plant is located Three Mile Island, Where in 1979 there was a partial merger of the core with subsequent release of radioactive material, in what is remembered as the worst nuclear accident in US history.Since then the second unit of the power plant has been closed but Microsoft, always looking for energy for its data centers, would like to reopen it.

The arms race in the field of AI affects all the main companies, in addition to the aforementioned Microsoft, which does not want to be left behind they are investing billions of dollars, and forgetting every environmentalist promise made in recent decades.The same one Google, which has always adopted a very progressive approach from this point of view, it's no longer officially carbon neutral, precisely because of AI.

This month xAI, a company founded by Elon Musk, former head of Twitter And Tesla, has been accused of powering its “supercomputer” with non-regulatory gas turbines, which they are creating smog and pollution problems in Memphis, Tennessee, confirming how AI has become the perfect alibi to erase decades of battles and energetic progress.These chatbots may be impalpable but they have an environmental impact which is more and more heavy and unjustified.