IMO the prior answers were vague, snarky, or both.
Straightforward: “genAI” correlates between lots and lots of chunks of information which in the terminology are “parameters.”
Each comparison is small but the number of calculations is staggering, and so processors which do them are big energy users, as are groups of computers offering these services all at once.
The reason it’s “too much” and is driving tech companies to buy up energy We Can’t Have is ostensibly because they want to run genAI all over the place on phones and TVs and search engines and cars and stoplights (to what end, that’s a different story).
I think they’re BSing. I think the current ‘wave’ if you will isn’t capable of doing what they say they’d like to do, and the real situation is that having successfully driven nuclear down they now want to buy it up before someone like a Trump comes along and actually makes energy abundant for serfs like us; I think the whole point AI or not is We Can’t Have It.
Thank you for that new angle on an explanation.
So there is a push to bring back nuclear energy (I’ve seen ads for it) and the “need” it is supposed to address is the enormous energy required (so it is said) for generative A.I. applications. …Which would compete with the consumers’ need for a cheap, clean (relatively) energy source and thus keep energy prices artificially high.
Do I read that right?